Blank Check with Griffin & David - Look Who's Talking Too with Max Minghella

Episode Date: May 25, 2025

The Ubriacco family are back and - can you believe it? - they’re still talking! Actor and filmmaker Max Minghella joins us to talk about Look Who’s Talking Too, the contractually-obligated, quickly produced sequel to Amy Heckerling’s surprise hit. We’re talking about Mr. Toilet Man (he eats your pee pee and poo poo), Elias Koteas’ Mr. Scary Uncle Man (he has a gun), and Mr. English Man (David Sims, who grew up in London). Plus, Ben continues to flesh out his “Look Who Hath Talked” prequel, and Griffin becomes the first person with the courage to ask, “Who was the first baby?” Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your  pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook!  Buy some real nerdy merch Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Blank check with Griffin and David Blank check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check Mikey's back and about to face his greatest challenge, his new podcast. That's the tagline. That's the tagline. It's pretty bad. You said I should do it.

No, I said it's kind of what you think it would be. But I mean, it's fun. It's fine. The title is Look Who's Talking To. It kind of sells itself. To is underlined, just in case you didn't realize they've changed the title. And you got two babies chewing on the title. You've seen the poster. You, of course, have seen the poster.

You have the poster tattooed on your chest, right? It is on my back. B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b Right? This is an infant. A hairless infant. And the headphones are gone for now. Okay. But the whole family's now above the title. And the dogs are underneath it. That's true. Travolta and Allie have joined the Wilson-esque, sort of, you know, peeking over the fence vibe. Yes.

They're sort of peeking over the fence. Were the Look Who's Talking posters the ultimate inspiration for Wilson? In Home Improvement. In Home Improvement. Did Tim Allen go in and say, and here's my big, here's my closer. Imagine a character who's perpetually in a state

of Look Who's Talking poster. The show starts in 91. The show starts in 91. I mean. Two of them are already out. That's pretty circumstantial, but I'm willing to say that yes. Home Improvement is ripping off Look Who's Talking.

Same year as Baby Talk. Baby Talk. TV spin-off. Yes. Of the Look Who's Talk. This is the thing we talk about in the last episode, and it's going to branch into far more conversation in this episode. Same network.

Same network. Right, Home Improvement's ABC, right? episode same network right home improvements ABC yeah that the that the entire life cycle of look who's talking which spawned three movies and two seasons of television is compressed within four years on top of that it also spawns a 20 million dollar lawsuit a divorce a dissolution of a marriage like I just a good job I I just started... A secret child. I was tipping this off right before we started recording, but I started going down the rabbit hole because J.J. Birch, our researcher, who I must say is fired because I watched this

movie, this film is deranged. I'm like, I need a lot more answers than I have. He submits to us a slim volume. So I start going to the hyperlinks to look for more answers. And the more the D the deeper I dug, the less answers I got, the more questions that were raised. And I was like in a spiral last night, akin to Robert Gray Smith and Zodiac. I was starting to lose my mind. What answer do you want? So many. Me too. I was with you.

I really went on a hunt on this fucker. I couldn't find anything. Because the movie raises a lot of questions. It's sort of like watching an MRI. Yes. Thank you. And... The more data you have, the more you need.

Totally. I mean, my first headline question is What's going on with? Mikey's Mouth movement. Okay. Great question. I think the first question is who is talking? What is being heard because last time it was pretty easy to zone in on that it just one This time we got two three. Mm-hmm. I'm the toilet for Mel Brooks Yes, if you count the toilet, four. Mel Brooks. If you count the toilet, four. Look.

I watched this movie last night. You gave it a very rude one and a half stars on letterbox. I thought that was very generous of me. The first thing I did it's, you know, spring break. All the children are home. Congrats. Look who's talking in your household.

Exactly. And I look at, well, what's the running? I gotta watch this thing. What's the running time? 82 minutes. Mwah! As I correctly predicted, movie actually ends at 75 minutes. The credits are not short. Yes.

Lovely and short. It's always about a buck 15 soaking wet. And I'm like, is this the first time we have discussed a basically kind of irrelevant movie, all your questions aside, since like, I was just sort of thinking, it's like Spielberg, David Lynch,

we've been tackling all these things where like, even when it's a minor work, like in All Ways or whatever, you're still like, I wanna pay attention, this is a great filmmaker. I'm not saying Amy Heckerling isn't, but I don't think anyone was really checked in for this one. Well, this is, I'm gonna push back. Dunstan was not around.

This is what I find fascinating about this movie, is it almost feels like experimental, non-narrative art. That's one way to talk about a bad movie. Another way is that no one bothered to write a script for a sequel that just kind of had to happen right away Here's what I'm gonna push back on I think it's the opposite problem Which is they demanded a sequel right away They had no overriding idea outside of we promised the sister at the end of the first movie, right? That's the one thing they have to deliver. Yeah.

They tease that. They promise Joan Rivers will be back. Right. And then of course she's not. She's not back. But they have promised some shrill pitched comedian will have zingers out of a baby's mouth. I think this movie has like eight trillion ideas in a sort of like showing up late for a presentation with like a bunch

of loose paperwork notes scribbled like furiously being like, okay, what about this? Like pinning it to the board. Like this movie keeps setting up threads and ideas that it doesn't really know how to pay off. I was quite happy when you guys said that, you know, cause I originally was maybe going to do the first movie and then we landed on this one and I was happy that we're doing this one because I am fascinated fundamentally with sequels. Thank you.

Especially in this kind of period of time. Yes. And there's something about what even David, you hit the nail on the head. The movie is such a product of a rush. Yes. It has to happen right now. It just has to happen right fucking now. the nail on the head, the movie's such a product of a rushed production. Yes. It has to happen now. It just has to happen right fucking now.

The, you know, the little energy of a surprise hit, it's gonna dissipate. Like we cannot wait. And we teed this up a little bit in the last episode, but to your point, David, even more so, I think this is the first time we've covered one of these, a phenomenon we've talked about a lot, which is specifically in the 80s and 90s, if you had a comedy hit, immediately it's like, hey, gun to your head, you have to make a sequel and it needs to be out the next calendar year. Like comedy sequels were made on a Saw franchise schedule of like, this is annual. And you pump them out until it runs dry. saw franchise schedule of like this is annual. Sure.

And you pump them out until the it runs dry. What was the distance between because the other movie I was thinking about a lot, what two movies I thought about a lot watching this was Drop Dead Fred. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And three men and a little lady. Yeah.

Which I have seen. I am proud to say that I've also, and I recall being an equally sort of catastrophic rushed simple. It's the exact same problem where it's like this has to be a baby, the minute it's not a baby we have a huge issue. No, there was a three year gap on that between Three Men and Little Lady. They had to let her grow up. I think this is a more interesting movie as a result of its rush production. Insanity, yes. Now, Three Men and a Little Lady is directed by Ernie Ardolino, who I consider a minor auteur.

Who did Dirty Dancing, right? I directed Dirty Dancing, which is a wonderful film. He won an Oscar for the documentary He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin'. He was a great, you know, sort of gay filmmaker in the 80s, like big fan of his. He made Sister Act, which is great. Made Three Men and a Little Lady, which is a disaster. He made something called Chances Are with Sybil Shepherd and Robert Downey Jr.

True. Oh yeah, yes. And then he made the really weird Nutcracker movie with Macaulay Culkin, which I think kind of rocks. And then he died of AIDS. Yes. Fascinating career. Anyway, not important to look who's... We haven't even introduced the podcast.

We haven't. Look, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. Kind of a throwback. I took a second. You took a second. I'm warming up. I'm sorry. It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers,

such as making Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Sure. Or... Look Who's Talking, one of the highest grossing films of 1989. who have massive success early on in their careers, so just making fast times at Ridgemont High or Look Who's Talking, one of the highest grossing films of 1989 hit at the time the highest grossing international performer That Columbia Pictures had ever released. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah And are given a series of blank checks make whatever crazy passion products they want or or are Legally forced to pump out a look who's talking sequel 14 months later. Yep. Yep

This is a miniseries on the films of Amy Heckerling. It's called pod times at Ridgemont cast and today look who's podcasting to it's us Yep, we are podcasting too. Yes. And who's our guest? Our guest today, long overdue on the main feed. He's popped in. Years in the making. He popped in one time on the special features feed. For the Oceans 11, for the Sinatra Oceans 11, which was, it was actually kind of distracting that you popped in because we were running so hot on that episode.

Oh no, I thought we were sound asleep in sarcophagi. So much to talk about. No, we were like, Max came in and he interrupted us. And we were like, this is the last thing we'd need right now is something new to talk about because this movie is boring as fuck. Max comes in and we're like, Hey baby, how you doing? Ring it in. Yeah, exactly.

We threw some bones. Yeah. Yeah. Max McGill. Thrilled to be a guy's longterm listener. You sound really bummed out. No, you're deep in thought. There's a lot to talk about.

You guys keep saying that. There's so much to talk about. Ben, was your talk about meter, you know, was it maxing out as you watched this? I wouldn't say it was maxing. No. I feel, I feel maxed out. I mean, look, this episode's maxed out. Hey! That is true. We're taking it to the max today, and no one can argue with that.

Um, look. Look Who's Talking To is a film by Amy Huckling, and it came out in 1990, and it didn't even do that badly. It made like 60 little hair under 60 domestic? Yeah, like, in comparison to the first, it did poorly, but who expected any less, right? I mean, I doubt the good people at TriStar were like, you know, damn it! Hackerling?

You know, like they were like, yeah, sure. This is another thing we talk about. We're ringing blood from the stone, right? For a long time, the formula was like, your sequel makes 40% of the previous film, and you just keep doing that until it no longer is profitable. Now there's the expectations that sequels grow and there was the sort of collection of I think in particular 80s action films that very quickly got canonized through VHS. You mean those sort of the Rockies and the Rambos?

The Die Hard 2, Rambo 2, Terminator 2, Bump, Lethal Weapon 2 is another example where those all grew. You're right, those went up. Two went way up. None of those movies, the first one made 100 and then the second one exploded and then the sequels were big. Comedy sequels in particular is part of them being like, rush it out. If we make 40% of what the last one did, we're still good. And a lot of these other franchises stopped at two.

Look Who's Talking, of course, pushed out a third one without Hector Lang, which then was calamitous. Right. That one makes less than 10 million. Yeah. Yes. That was a kind of who asked for this movie. Which I think is even shorter, David, than this one.

Oh, David, you're in for a good time. I unfortunately looked it up, as we are covering that on our Patreon. Yes, on our Patreon. 245? It is a brutal 95 minutes long. Oh no. I know. I mean, I was really devastated to learn that.

I was hoping it was the rest development, the, you know, maybe is making the movie. Oh, sure. And she keeps saying like, it's the best 53 minutes. Like the time keeps going down every time she, anyway. Max, you have been a friend of the podcast for years. I have. We heard that you and Jamie Bell, a fellow friend of the podcast,

guest years ago, still has Ben's recording kit. What's up with Jamie? We should get him to send that back. We should. We should get him to be on the show again. Well, that's the real thing. If you're listening, mate, send back the fucking recording. Jamie, keep it and pick a, you know, whatever.

It's honestly fine. It wasn't like very expensive gear. It was cheap. Ben, we'll keep it from the blank. Pick a you know whatever. It's honestly fine. It wasn't like very expensive gear. It was a cheap. Ben we'll get it back to you. But we started messaging with you guys about coming on the show. Yeah. The original plan was that you guys were going to do Miami Vice. Oh yeah.

Oh that's right. That you were the other two friends and that we were just going to bro out on vice together. And then I have to revise. We have to revise. Yeah, we'll do that. But I forget what it was, but like travel plans changed and one of you two could make it and the other one couldn't. And there was a vote of solidarity of I refuse to go on without my brother, which is why

that episode was guest list. Right. Then we eventually got Jamie to do contact, but like gray episode, twice a year, we'll message you guys and be like anything here. And you guys are always like, only want to come on if it's the right thing. Right? Like interrupting the oceans 11 commentary. Exactly. We're always talking to you, but we're always looking for the right episode.

You were at Toronto promoting a film that you directed that was premiering there, Shell. And I saw a headline from an interview that said one of your biggest inspirations on the film was the Look Who's Talking movies. And I messaged you immediately and I was like, Max, it's on the fucking spreadsheet. This is a done deal. It's non-negotiable. You have to talk Look Who's Talking with us. I'm so happy you reached out.

I have a long, I have a long history of the first Look Who's Talking film. A good film. When I was, I was trying to do the math on this, but it was when I was four years old. Look Who's Talking 1 was, I don't know if you guys were like this, when I was young, I used to watch movies just over and over. Same. And you and I are similar ages, Max. Really similar, very similar lives. My history is basically an overlap of both of your childhoods.

If you guys were to combine, it might look like a horrifying thought. So anyway, I watched Look Who's Talking 1 on repeat for about a year straight. I fell quite deeply in love with the Kirstie Alley, which in retrospect was a little eccentric, but I was really obsessed with her. And she's pretty, got the big hair. She was pretty sexy. She has the voice. She's a real fucking woman, you know?

1989, Kirstie Alley. She was a real woman. She was also on Cheers at the same time. So I was getting real woman. She was also on Cheers at the same time. So I was getting double trouble. And I put together a package for her over, over a course of about a year where if I had like a pack of M&Ms, I would save an M&M and put it into a package. And the idea was that this was eventually going to be your gift offering to Curziale. Wow.

To Curziale. And it was, you know, I was told it was sent to her. I'm sure it wasn't. I really hope it was thrown into a trash. Put Kiersti Alley on an envelope, put it in a mailbox. We'll see what happens. If you want to send stuff to Kiersti Alley, you have to bury it under this tree in the backyard.

That's how she'll get it. I'm sure it just went straight in the dump. But she's, I got an autographed headshot. Wow. Somehow. Somehow I managed to get an autographed headshot. So that lived on my bedroom wall for quite a long time. And this movie, look, when you see this movie at four years old, it's pretty educational.

I mean, I'm talking about the first one. David doing the loudest paperback crinkle of all time. It's quite educational. You're learning how the birds and the bees and all of that stuff. And it's a nice balance, you know, I think like you, Griffin, my parents didn't show me kid movies. They found them like too cynical, sort of like, you don't need that sort of trashy stuff. Well, the censorship wasn't like you can't watch movies where people have sex.

It was like, you can't watch bad movies. So I remember I really wanted to see Three Ninjas. I wasn't allowed to see that because it was considered crass. This was similar to my parents. Yeah. Any Woody Allen movie, totally fine. But once Three Ninjas knuckled up, was an exception made? No exceptions were made.

I had to sneak off to see suburban commando. That wasn't permissible. What about when the clock hit high noon at magic mountain? Is that mega mountain? What's that? The high noon at mega mountain, I believe. Yeah. Fucking, I don't know.

Anyway, I don't even know what was going to that. Well, you're talking about like a lot of these, the kid stuff didn't slip through the cracks for you, but I guess this one did. This was sort of a perfect balance because the movie is very juvenile, but it has these sort of adult themes. And it's why the second movie, it all goes wrong.

It's like this balance that's quite, you know, delicately handled in the first film. Just all goes off the fuck. Have you rewatched the first one recently? I did and watched it before. Great. So I had this, this profound experience that was covered in last week's episode where if you had asked me before we recorded, I was like, I have seen all three of those movies over ten times, because I watched them all repeatedly when I was a child. And then watched the first one for the podcast,

and was like, I have never seen this before. I'm not recognizing most of these scenes, and everything I remembered being from this movie is actually in the second one. Wow. You have seen this one a million times because it was on TV all the time. Two and three were on the Disney Channel constantly.

And my parents were so weird about what they would and wouldn't allow me to watch. There was some connection to what you were saying, but then they also had their own weird eccentricities. But anything that was on the Disney Channel, they assumed had been vetted and was okayed. Even though that was not really the case. That early 90s Disney Channel was kind of a fucking junkyard And so I saw two and three so many fucking times But have not seen them in 30 years And I was like there are things that are burned into my memory and after watching one and being like man one's really fucking good

This is so much more of a movie and this is a surprise to me And I haven't seen this one is a story about two people and their characters that you kind of like. And the baby stuff is in there and it's funny, but it kind of lifts out of the movie in a way. And it's like just sort of fun seasoning. But Keir Siali, you're with her. She's going through a crazy thing.

George Siegel cheats on her or whatever. You know, knocks her up and then leaves. All that stuff. Travolta. She's going to figure it out with this guy? He's so charming, he drives a cab. These characters have integrity. I get so antsy. The characters have no integrity

in Luke, who's talking to you. The characters have integrity. This movie is- Say that to Mr. Toilet Man. Straight up, I would say, and I was shocked, it shocked the conscience to use like legal language, to see how Amy Heckerling did Keirce Ali's character so dirty in this movie.

She transforms the character just for like plot reasons essentially. Sure. Yeah, it sucks. I mean I'm not, I can't be mad because I don't really care. I wanna finish my point. Fine. Which is, when I go to rewatch this last night,

I'm sort of like, okay, is this gonna be even better than I remember, because the first one over delivered so hard And this is going to this with high expectations in my memory and I was just like their images that are so burned in there their dialogue exchanges that I feel like I can recite even though it's been three decades and Very quickly. I was like this movie is deranged. It is unhinged is so much stranger than I remember. And I was trying to figure out like, why was this so big for me growing up? Cause it wasn't just I was watching it because it was on. I was excited when it was on. I liked the film a lot as well as a kid. Yes.

And I totally missed the fact that this was poorly received. It was a weird movie. It was as good as the first. I just forgot about it. There was a third one. So I was like, people must have loved this one. They demanded that the dogs... The gravy train rolled on. Right. But I had a very similar experience when I sat down to watch this yesterday and I was like, oh, this is, this totally doesn't work.

Right. But in trying to reverse engineer my connection to it, I was like, there is some weird thing to this movie of the babies talking is a much larger element in this than it was in the first. Sort of, right. Still not that crucial plot wise, but there's more of it. Plot wise, I would say it's even less important, but there is certainly more of it. There are more characters talking and they talk more often, right? Yes. But I think that weird balance of what you're saying of like, it is a movie that is sort of told from the perspective of children, sort of, and has this like heightened

comical like these are the anxieties of like potty training or like things coming to life in your bedroom when you're going to sleep. Like these real kind of kids I view anxieties blown up. And then the other half of the movie is like adults dealing with adult shit above the heads of children. And taxes. Taxes. I just think there was so much in this movie that I was like, I don't know what's going on,

but this feels like a glimpse into the grownup world. Having a layabout brother who's staying on your couch for too long and figuring out what you can write off as a business expense and going through marital troubles. Like it is such an odd marriage of, the first one is really not a family film. It is like a movie for grownups. It is basically like an adult rom-com and like a working woman movie that has this high concept baby hook that is so much less

of the movie than like the cultural reputation would suggest. And then this is actually just this Frankensteining of two things. It feels very bifurcated. It's like you sort of switch between potty training subplot. Yes. Slash of nightmare visions. Right. Sort of nightmare on potty training.

Yes. And then I have recently lived through. I'm sure this is very relatable actually. No, no, I would say this doesn't really describe. There's one moment where it kind of has an idea of how it actually works, but we can carry on with that. Okay. And then yeah, and then this sort of breakdown of a marriage. It's weird that they decided to really create so much tension in

the relationship when the charm of the first film is how these opposites tracked. And also to skip over the wedding, right? Because they're already married in the second one. I was like, why the fuck did you miss the wedding? This movie's relationship to time is insane. But I think part of it is... Which the first movie is a little bit too. It does a lot of sort of jumping and you just kind of get it, you know. But this is even more crazy where it's just like there are weird gaps of like

sometimes it feels like the movie is spending 20 minutes of screen time on 15 minutes of real world time and sometimes like five years elapse in the middle of a cut. Not five years, but certainly this film takes place over, I would say, 18 months from my sort of knowledge of babies, which is extensive, not to brag. Okay. In terms of like where the daughter develops from. You have your own trilogy.

Yeah. And to maybe two years, I guess, if we're counting Conception, which the movie does begin with, we do actually rewind. Well, I was going to say, they fuck themselves immediately with the ending of the first movie and how do you build the sequel from this. Right. Because the first movie ends with them kissing, right? Having this sort of like reconnection moment and then immediately cuts to internal sperm flying towards the egg and then

Cut to delivery room Female baby is born Julie. Oh great question What are the names of the characters in this movie? Joan Rivers coming out of the baby's mouth? The the girl is called Julie nailed it The girl is called Julie. Nailed it. There you go. Yeah, all four children have the last name of Travolta's character, Ubreaco? Yes. Oh, of course.

Despite Bruce Willis, Mikey, not, of course, being the biological son of Travolta. Right. But I guess, you know, when they got married, even Molly takes them and they all become ubriacos. Did anybody else think that Mikey and this one looked younger than Mikey at the end of the first one? Or was that just me? It is a different Mikey, right? Of course, they have to reset the kids every time, I think. I mean, if you look at the poster for now, it's obviously

brand new kids. I mean, yeah, so I think it's like, because by the end of this movie, Julie is kind of walking, right? Like she takes her first steps and stuff. Yeah, to the tri-star music. I love that. Doing it to the tri-star music. Not to leap ahead in the action.

This film's second tri-star bit. Second tri-star bit. They really wanted to know who made the film. What happened there? But this is what I'm saying. Is that like temp music and then just no one decided to take it out? This is a movie with no overriding idea.

To be clear, just because. And like 8,000 scraps of ideas. Because our listeners may not check in with this movie. Yes, when Julie takes her first steps, the sort of familiar music of the TriStar logo that plays while that happens. The music that goes through every parent's head when their children start walking. They think of a Pegasus inside a triangle.

I love that moment in the film, unapologetically. And there were other things in the movie. I think this movie has flame dunk moments. In the back half, I quite liked. It did sort of win me. Ben is looking at me like I'm a sick person. The final 38 minutes is what you're referring to. I would just, by the end of the film, I was like, you know what?

Didn't hate it. I think you and I are completely aligned on this and a lot of this is probably... But you have a bit of nostalgia for this thing, which I do not. Nostalgia and it being burned into our DNA, but I also was trying to watch it objectively and I'm like, I cannot argue this movie is not a mess. It is an absolute disjointed mess. There were moments where I was just like, fuck, these 30 seconds are good. Here's an idea. Here's a successfully landed joke. Here's a little stylish bit of filmmaking. Here's a fun performance moment. And then like when it would cut to the next thing, I'd be like, this movie has

no shape. There are moments of filmmaking on that. There was these little things where you go like, oh yeah, of course it's Amy heckling. It's not made by nobody. Yes. Um, there's a beautiful shot when she runs into the airport hangar and that's gorgeous. That sequence is so in the house burning. The apartment burning is like so high production value for like nothing. Yep. And the D, the DP who also shot the first one, there's a very specific aesthetic to these movies. I mean, Thomas Del Roof. I don't know, I don't know if it's good or bad, but it has a real look.

They both have a real look. It's going to backflip slightly soft porn. Yes. Yes. They do have the fuzzy. And like there's a lot of neon in her house, which is never explained. Bra love is the sign she has above the TV, it looks like. Which is the same deal in the first movie where she's just sort of decorated the whole house with neon, and you're kind of like, I feel like she's just done that because they like how it looks, not because it makes sense for her character, but it doesn't matter. But it does give the whole thing a, it's basically the same apartment. I assume that it filmed again in Calgary or whatever, like it was not New York.

Well, there's more New York exteriors in this one for sure. I think there is like, she got like one day of New York. Because there are a couple specific New York locations, but most of it was still in Vancouver, which as JJ dug up in the dossier, part of that was more lax child labor laws. We can look at the doss laws. Oh, great. We can look at the dossier. Now, the thing that bugged me about this movie is the thing I was saying about Keir Seattle's character, Molly, who is now Ubreako, I guess, Molly Jensen, is that a plot point

in this well-designed humming script is that her brother shows up, played by Casey Jones himself. Oh shit. Yeah, that's him. He didn't have the long hair, but that's that guy. And he's sort of coded as like, kind of like a conspiracy theorist or whatever. He's like a little wacky. Travolta refers him as a fascist. He seems to want to be a cop.

He carries a gun around all the time. He is introduced wearing an NYPD hat. But he's not a cop. He's such a piece of shit. He sucks. He like very obviously sucks. He's not an ambiguous character. Like the audience is not supposed to look at this guy.

Does he say he's a pretty racist when he comes in? He does. He says weird, he's always saying weird. He kind of feels like a, right, like an early 90s version of like a kind of red-pilled guy But also the movies like in his behavior is incredibly clear When characters talk about him in the movie you could think they're talking about different people Where it's like Travolta is like he sucks

Keircey Alley seems to be like look. he's my fuck-up brother. I feel bad for him. Olympia DeCaca seems to be like, he's the golden boy. Why can't your shitty husband be more like our son? Right, so there's a little bit of that going on. He is seemingly very good at accounting. Right, he has like a weird brain that's kind of good for that, I guess,

but everything else about him is odd. But he wants to be a cop or something. He wants to be a cop or a vigilante. Yeah, ninja, or Casey Jones, possibly. Right, right. He wants to be a cop or something. But he wants to be a cop or vigilante. Yeah, Ninja or Casey Jones possibly. Right. He wants to go find the turtle. Or like dog the bounty hunter or ice agent. He's like, he has a gun as you said. Yes. And Travolta who is kind of the same character he was in the first movie in this.

He's basically just being like nice Fini Barberina kind of guy, right? She's like, hey, he has a gun in the house. We have two small children. We should not have a gun in the house. Right. And Curiali's like, relax. And I'm like, that is not the character from the first. No, 100% agree.

She actually goes like this. Is it loaded? And he says no. Yeah, it's so crazy. And it's obviously only for a stupid plot thing to happen later, right? It's Chekhov's gun, the worst form of Chekhov's gun. But then the Chekhov's gun-

It's a barely makes sense what they use it for, yes. Yes, jump all the way to the end. The Chekhov's gun of it is that someone- you know what, we should save this for later. I want to zoom out. But that's where I was just like, I can't believe Amy's given up on her somewhat sort of like pseudo, you know, autobiographical protagonist here. Like you know, in the first movie, she's a bit of an Amy Heckerling. She's going through an Amy Heckerling situation.

Here's the single biggest thing, and this can lead us into the limited context that exists for this fever dream of a movie, is that she says she was basically legally forced to make this movie. Right, which we can talk about. That she did not want to do it. And her quote was like, the story's done, the baby talked, there's nothing left to say. That in her mind it's like there was an arc to that first movie, which is like this adult rom-com happening in this single mother story that is her working through the ramus thing. Do you know the ramus? Okay, good But also this I think what is a good rom-com hook of like single mother

Meeting a guy and not being able to judge him based on do I like him? But could he be a good father? Which is where the device of the baby talking is like effective in the movies in the last 30 minutes which is where the device of the baby talking is like effective in the movies in the last thirty minutes when Mikey is like expressing to the audiences in her monologue of being like dude get it together I want you to be my dad and the character has this internal frustration of not being able to get who he wants to be his parents together happily right and then at the end the baby says the one word's Dada. And Amy Hickling's mind like complete story. And you introduce a baby sister at the end,

it's a fun little stinger joke. I'm tearing up as you remind me of the beautiful thing. It works. And then TriStar is like, you obviously are making the baby sister movie right away. Yeah, I mean, she kind of played herself, right? Having the teaser. One thing I'd love us to she kind of played herself, right? Having, having the teaser. One thing I'd love us to do guys, before we wrap up the app is we, I think we're done actually. I'll see you later. 32 minutes. Two hours on the clock. Two hours. That's

not bad for this. No, no, go ahead. Go ahead. What would, what would be the better path to take with this movie? I have some thoughts. I'd love to hear you. Yeah, let's pin this. Okay, let's pin it. Let's pin this. But she basically says, I had no idea, right? And like Bob Gale and Zemeckis have talked about this too, the Back to the Future 2 ends with the like, you're a kid's Marty.

And Universal was like, how ingenious that you set this up perfectly for a sequel. And they were like, that was a dumb joke in our minds. We never thought we'd make a sequel. And in fact, we fucked ourselves. It's kind of like Nolan having the Joker card in Batman Begins, where he's always insisted, like, you know, it just felt like a good button for the movie. It didn't feel like this insistent kind of like,

the next movie is The Joker, get ready. But obviously, everyone who sees the movie is like, I cannot wait to see who The Joker will be ready. But obviously, everyone who sees the movie is like, I cannot wait to see who The Joker will be. I love Back to the Future Part II, but like Gael and Zemakas have always said, if we had planned for that to be a sequel set up, Jennifer would not have gotten in the cart with them.

Like that was the biggest single storytelling mistake we made is then Back to the Future II has to be like, fuck, what do we do with Jennifer? Because we put her in the shotgun seat, right? And similarly, I think Heckerling is just like, well, at the end of the movie, we'll just like cut to them kissing, puppet sperm, delivery room, nice little button,

and now Columbia's insisting that the sequel happen. The weirder part of all of this, and she doesn't talk much about this movie. She's like, I hated doing it, I it I felt totally lost was a miserable experience. Yeah I don't even want to talk about it But the other part of this is there's this giant 20 million dollar lawsuit that the first movie comes out October of 89 the lawsuit is filed at the beginning of 1990 look who's talking to comes at the end of 1990 and the lawsuit is filed at the beginning of 1990. Look Who's Talking To comes at the end of 1990.

And the lawsuit is fuzzy. It's in the dossier, but basically, this couple said that they had made a short film at AFI, Amy Heckerling's alma mater, that was adapted from a short story that was about a hyper-intelligent baby that could speak to its parents, a more heightened sci-fi premise.

Right, right. Sort of a baby genius, if you will. Yes. Yes. Twin Kaplan, the best friend character in these movies, later, Heckerling's producer on Clueless and Loser and regular stock company player, was Amy Heckerling's secretary slash assistant. company player. Was Amy Heckerling's secretary slash assistant? They met in the early 80s when she was just a struggling actress and Heckerling was like, come work for me.

Right. And we love Twinkaplan. Yes. She's charming. The couple who do this short, which I believe was called Special Delivery? Yes. It was the couple is one of the names Jeannie Myers and Rita Stern, I don't know. Okay. Yeah, so maybe it was not a couple but this duo, right? They submitted to Heckerling's office Twink Kaplan receives it corresponds with them for months is like can you show me more materials then after several months is like I

Think we're going to pass. Yeah, we don't see a film here. They never interact with heckling directly. This is in the mid 80s. Then in 1987, they pitch it separately to a subsidiary of TriStar. And they're like, interesting, we think there might be something here for a TV movie. It never happens. Then in 89 Look Who's Talking talking comes out makes a gazillion dollars these two file a lawsuit like Immediately the lawsuit is not resolved until April of 1991 Months after look who's talking to comes out, but they were suing for 20 million dollars There are always these cases where like finding Nemo comes out and then someone's like in

1946 I FedExed a package that said, what if Fish talked to Disney? SIMON O'HARA Now you owe me $800 million. AARON Right. And these suits usually get thrown out of court. SIMON Right. Or, right, whatever, exactly. AARON Right. There are the rare exceptions of like the Art Buckwall coming to America case. This was settled for some undisclosed amount. They did not get the case thrown out. The judge ruled that there were too many similarities. This was settled for some undisclosed amount.

They did not get the case thrown out. The judge ruled that there were too many similarities. There's often also, these cases often do get, like a payoff is made essentially. And like no one gets to talk about it and that's that. And Twink Kaplan's like, we can't talk about it, but we're very happy with the end result. Sort of framed it as like, we feel like we won, but it can't

be talked about. But somewhere within this lawsuit, it seems like there's some entanglement that then amounts to Columbia forcing her to make the second move. It is not explained why exactly she had to do it, but yes, she had to do it. She brought along Neil Israel, her husband, to co-write it. Although obviously we, you know, he's not the actual father of the child they had together That's Harold Ramis. We talked about this all and reports very this is where I go full Robert Gray Smith But by many accounts they are divorced by the time this movie comes out. They certainly did not last much longer. No This film was filmed in Vancouver

much like the last film was in Calgary, sorry and apparently over, much like the last film was in Calgary, sorry. And apparently Canada has or had less restrictive child labor laws so they could have more time with the toddlers that was necessary. Film for 61 days, which is so funny. I mean, it's just funny. I know it's not. It's just like, what movie films for 61 days? How many days did you have on your two movies? I mean, yeah, don't even ask me that question. It's too like, what do we film through 61 days now? How many days did you have on your two movies? I mean, yeah, don't even ask me that question.

It's too painful to answer. I mean, 61 Days is interesting for this film. It doesn't feel like a movie that's been made. Yeah. They just did it slower back then. I guess they had a lot of kid wrangling to do. That is the one thing I guess that does cramp your time. But 61 Days, like Steven Soderbergh could make, you know, all six Lord of the

Rings movies in 61 days or whatever now. Yeah, they had to get the lips moving. That's true. They had to get the lips moving. That's not easy. They had two days of exteriors in New York. Two days in New York. Yeah. David. Yes.

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That's 50% off your first year at MonarchMoney.com with code CHECK. Check. I want to hear more about the research. Tell me more. But this is the problem. Is that it seems like however this lawsuit was settled, no one involved can talk about it anymore. So she'll just give these offhand comments of like, it was like a big mess.

Twin Caplan has a couple times been like, I can't say a single thing, but we're happy with how it turned out. The people who pitched special delivery have never been able to talk about it. The way she's put it just is, I was kind of made to do the second one. I was not delighted with it. The suit was filed in 19, like they approached in 1985. It does, I can see why they had to settle on this.

The timing is just, it doesn't look good. Yes. You know, and even though it is a married couple who learns that their unborn child has a full adult consciousness and a genius intellect, so that is not look who's talking, but whatever. But according to Hickling, somehow that lawsuit ensnared her into making look who's talking too.

The specific mechanics are not clear. She was forced into doing it for legal reasons, she said. This was not a fun experience. And she's also, I think, having this sort of existential panic of am I just making Talking Babies movies now? Right, like is this my life now? Joan Rivers was replaced by Roseanne Barr. Doesn't really explain why.

I mean, they throw out the classic like scheduling difficulties. Oh fuck off, Joan Rivers is available. Exactly. Anything people say that about animated films I'm like that is bullshit. I can see that they were just like Roseanne's hot hot hot. I mean to get that. They were like Joan Rivers is a funny end of movie joke but if we're actually making the sequel don't we want a name on the poster that's as exciting as Bruce Willis is the voice of this baby.

I guess so. Which in 1990 saying Roseanne is the other baby is like a slam dunk. I remember at the time feeling like a huge get. Right. You're just even as a child, you're like, that's funny. I'm laughing. But as a child, you are so familiar with celebrities who have one name. Yes.

Like those are the celebrities that first enter our lives. The Roseans, the Madonnas, you know, Sinbad. You don't even have to finish. She's one and done. The Arsenios. Right. And also has a very distinctive voice, like people impersonate Rosans. Now, famously, the early Tra-

Sting. The Stings. Yes. Michelangelo. Sting was one. Leonardo. Donatello. Sting was one where I was like, it took me a while to be like,

so his name's like not Sting at all, right? Like it's not like his name is like Sting Jones. Right. Like, and he dropped the Jones. He just made that up, huh? You know what? Roseanne is kind of the rare example in the list we just did of like, it is just her first name. Same with Madonna. Same with Madonna. Right, I always forget that that is her first name.

Cher, right? Cher, for sure. Yep. Another one. Very good. Cher is Cheryl. But still. Still.

Richard Pryor famously is the voice of the friend child in the early trailer and apparently his performance tested horribly. I saw the trailer for the first time yesterday. What's the vibe? I have not seen this trailer. Well, they really push I saw the trailer for the first time. And what's the vibe? I have not seen this. Well, they really, they really push him in the trailer. But that first teaser. And Richard Pryor.

It's fascinating because that first teaser, speaking of how quickly this movie was pushed around is like 60% footage from the first movie. It's like, remember Mikey. And then it shows you a bunch of clips from the first movie and they clearly just have like a few soaking wet clips from Daly's of the second one, but they like call out Richard Pryor. He of course has already, like his health struggles have progressed.

Yeah, this is not right, like primo Richard Pryor time. In that clip on YouTube, which is very low quality, his voice is not very clear. Like I could see it testing poorly being less of a thing of, like, we don't think Richard Pryor's funny, and more like this guy is struggling to speak. Yes. So he's replaced with Damon Wayans.

In Living Color premieres sort of right before this movie comes out, like, a few months before, so, like, Damon Wayans is starting to get hot. Yes. Keir Siali got $2.5 million for the film. And came out December 14th, 1990, 14 months after its predecessor was released. And it made 48 million domestic,

which is well, $100 million less than the first movie. So it's not good. But it's still enough money. And I'm seeing here, this can't be right. So JJ may be fired that the reviews were negative? Weird. Not sure, that seems crazy to me. Max, can you talk about,

because we have not gotten to see Shell yet, sadly. Can you talk about the influence it had on your film? In what way, and how much of it is just sort of like the memory you had of Look of Talking In what way? And how much of it is just sort of like the memory you had of Look of Talking versus what it actually is? Well, what's the name of that actress we were just talking about? Who was the assistant? Twink? Twink Kaplan.

Twink Kaplan. Twink, right. She's in Clueless as well. There's a character in In Shell, played by Estie Heim, who is, I would say, very influenced by the twin character in The Look Who's Talking. In The Look Who's Talking. In The Look Who's Talking movies. Okay.

Shell is a very eccentric, hopefully really fun movie that's very much made, probably for people who listen to this show, it sort of exists within the world of studio movies of the late eighties and early nineties and not in a, not in a cynical way. It's trying to sort of earnestly emulate a sort of piece of studio product from that period of time. And all of the things that come with that, including sort of strange studio notes and reshoots. And, you know, I hope the movie contains all the textures that a movie of that period might have. And yeah, look who's talking, the aesthetic

of it. There's a slightly, even the first one, right? There's something slightly nightmarish about it. Yes. The puppetry too. Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's a bit of a dark movie. There's weird fantasy sequences, heads exploding, things like that.

Yeah, it has the sort of the veneer of like a fun, kids are talking and it's just revolting, but there is something slightly ominous bubbling underneath the surface all the time. And so hopefully Shell has a similar energy. We were talking right before a record about, and it's what I love about you, that we were talking about the films of Walt Becker and you talking about which ones you had seen

recently since your reappraisal of him as a vulgar auteur, you were apologizing for certain movies you hadn't seen in too long, where you're like, well, I saw it before I understood who he was. Well, you guys are totally responsible, we're now getting off topic, but for my fascination with Warbacca, the old dogs episode, guys, if you haven't heard the old dogs episode, the live episode, that is top five five for me all time blank check episodes. I've listened to it probably 17 times. Insane.

But to what, cause you get to watch along this fucking batshit movie with an incredibly entertaining commentary. He's really interesting. He's a really interesting guy. He's fascinating. And you think that the aesthetic here reminds you a little bit of the later Becker, the kind of family film. No, it doesn't. This movie, I do want to talk about this though, because this movie, I mentioned

Drop Dead Fred and Three Men and a Little Lady. It also is in the canon of dark sequels. Uh huh. Gremlins 2, The New Batch, there is some stuff here, right? Bay Pig in the City. But going to Gremlins 2, the kind of the tri-star jingle, like even the Mr. Ed at the beginning of the film. Yes, which Gremlins 2 does with the Looney Tunes. Right. We're starting to get into that territory of children's films with a little bit of a weird vibe. And Grimlands 2 is the absolute best version of this,

where it's also a like, hey, we have 8,000 ideas movie. It's overflowing with ideas. It kind of throws away the first movie, not entirely, but kind of like, don't worry about those. I mean, some of those characters are still here, but like, that's not what's gonna happen now and you're very much like, that's fine. Like, it's a new movie. This movie, it's the same build, you know, it's the same rooms.

Right. So it's a little harder to kind of just be like, anarchy. Well, the reason I'm just reinvoking Walt Becker is not because I think Walt Becker shares a commonality with the movies we're talking about, right? But I think he's one of weirdly the last standing examples of, talk about what you were getting at with Shell, right? This era of filmmaking where like they allowed enough personality to come through, directors

still had enough control while making things that were designed to be mainstream popular entertainment, right? There were some mid-budget movies that were healthy, that are being supported by the studio, where the stakes are low enough that they'll let you do your weird shit to a degree, but then that has to be balanced with studio note shit. There was some odd Frankenstein middle ground. Mason- I call it, so it's like the test screening period in my mind. That is the filter system that everything has to go through and has to pass. And you're right, before that, the filmmaker gets to be much more expressive than probably

a contemporary studio gone by. But there's almost like a feast or famine thing now of you hear about a lot of like big franchise movies where they pre-schedule extended reshoots and they're like, look on set we will let the director do a couple takes their way. And then the producer is going to weigh in and insist that they do a couple more normal takes. And then they let the director put together their cut while having another editor put together the most normal cut.

And then they test screen both of them, and then they go into the reshoots to either amplify what they like that the director did or tone it down and make the more sort of, like, banal version of it. Like, they have this whole choose your own adventure system to prevent there forever being any personality that's too irreversible on a like $200 million scale.

And I think if people get a lower budget, they're fighting much more adamantly for like, I'm gonna make this exactly the way I want with no concessions because it is so rare that anyone gets any kind of opportunity like that. That this sort of like negotiation career filmmaking of Heckerling being like, look if I check like six boxes they want, will they let me do my six things over here? And this movie doesn't have overriding I have things I want to say,

but it has like moments and sequences and ideas that feel like things that excite her, even if there's no larger excitement. And I think that's part of like the weird soup of this movie and her even being like, I was miserable and I was forced to do this. And I'm like, but there's stuff here. I do think part of it is that it's like you get into this. Matt There's no stuff here, by the way, but carry on. Luke Dude, Matt Max and I are going to fight on this. Luke David.

Matt Yeah. Luke Why are you being so cruel? Matt The potty, Mr. Potty eats poo poo and pee pee. Luke People worked really hard on this film for 61 days. Matt 61 long days. A baton death march. Making look who's talking to for two whole months. Yeah, the potty joke is funny.

It's not a joke. Is it funny? It's, well, it's sort of the same. This film begins with first, yes, we have the long, and again, for a 75 minute movie, possibly too long, kind of feels like making your font to 20 point where it's like the sperm and the eggs. And I'm like, is it going to be different than last time? And they're like, well, we have the diaphragm joke now.

First it opens with the TriStar Pegasus running and Bruce Willis doing a Mr. Ed impression. He does do that. Narrating the TriStar fanfare. I mean, I think we were all asking for that. I think it pays out like a slot machine. Like $5. Then it starts with diaphragm shots. Then we have, right, the repeat of the first movie's

fertilization with plus a diaphragm. So there's an extra layer of, you know, protection. Here's the question, though. Because Bruce Willis is once again voicing the sperm. Christie Alley is voicing the egg. Yes. And the diaphragm. And the diaphragm.

But that is, so, but then shouldn't it be Travolta's sperm? I don't know how much we should be getting into gender on Blank Check, but it's interesting that these sperms are male at all. I'll say this. Now they're male because they're coming from the man. I get the thinking, right? Well, and also, look, in the first movie, you're starting...

I understand. ...this arc with the one little sperm who becomes Mikey. Yeah, the little bruce Willis who cut. So of course it has to be bruce Willis. But, you know, all fertilized eggs are female until during the process one chromosome gets introduced. So, biologically, maybe everything should be female, and then there's some point at which a flip gets switched, but it might be too complicated for viewers

to understand this, I don't know. Yes. What's important is that it goes on for, this is not my point, my point is after all of that, the film begins, and the first thing we see is Bruce Willis' baby, Mikey, getting tormented by monsters in his room, right? This is where I was going to correct you. That's being cross-cut with the conception,

because that's the whole thing. Oh, sure. Right. It's the same. Right. They're having it at the same time. Is that they're doing a little foreplay. They're doing a little bit of hand keeping. She's making sure that the diaphragm's in, and then he starts screaming because his dolls are being possessed. But it's quite... Which are being done with, like, puppet master style.

That's the thing. It's kind of scary. Yeah. Straightforwardly scary. And you're like, well, kids do get scared of toys. I understand the gag here, but this is just kind of a scary vibe for this movie, as Max is saying, like, to kick off with. That's when I was like... It's just kind of like demons are here. Fuck, I was right. with. That's when I was kind of like, demons are here.

Fuck, I was right. Five-year-old Griff was right. This movie is a masterpiece. Let's go. Like when in the first four minutes, it's thrown all of this out. Yes. But right, then Travolta basically

puts the kid back to bed. Then they fuck. Then the opening credits happen to the impregnation. Right, right, right, right. The one sperm makes it through the diaphragm, sneaking through. But shouldn't have been Roseanne's voice as the egg? Do you know what I'm saying?

The logic doesn't make sense. Totally, totally, totally, totally. I think there's just no right way to do this, probably, right? Like, it's just kinda like, you're snookered no matter what you try. Or it should have just been, fucking what's his name with the silly voice who's the gym coach or whatever

Godfrey's fucking voice. More Gottfried, I'm happy. Like if this movie wanted to over index on Gottfried, I'd be giving it a thumbs up. It wasn't enough Gottfried at all. There's not nearly enough Gottfried. And he was still rudely given a golden raspberry nomination. Jossie's Gym? That's his sort of play center thing. Right, his version of Jimbery. I think it's Jossie's Gym. That's his sort of play center thing. Right, his version of Jimberea.

I think it's Jossie's Jim. The font is weird on the sweatshirt. So yeah, just like sets of weird tone, the monsters. I don't know. Max talks. It's the tone of the film. The whole movie's got that weird nightmare energy to it. It's got nightmare energy.

We lose track of Keirie Alley's job. We kind of see her once where she brings the kid to the office and gets reprimanded. Yeah. And notice that the male character, sort of the antagonist of that scene, also is talking about some kind of medical issue that he's having, I believe, which sort of nods to the first film when she goes on the date with the toupee accountant. Yes.

And that guy did have a toupee vibe, the man. Yeah, but I feel like Amy Heckling associates a certain kind of man she finds unattractive with them talking about their bodily functions. But also, am I wrong in thinking that the boss at the office who lambasts her for bringing the kid to work is Neil Israel, her husband at the time who co-wrote the movie? Oh, is that right? I think so.

I think that, I mean, sure. Which is also funny to slot him into one of these parts. It is interesting, meta layer to it all. Yeah. He is Mr. Ross, and look who's talking to him, I believe, yes, that's him. Yeah. Wow, playing just like an absolute turd

Yeah, like just come in for one scene and suck Like independent Sequences that feel almost entirely unrelated to one another right which is where it works I mean just like look at this fucking still image of Which is where it works. I mean just like look at this fucking still image of Teddy bear with glowing red eyes and a literal little demon imp over its shoulder It's not just like oh the kids worried that if the lights get turned off the stuffed animals are come are gonna come to life He's literally worried that like demons are creeping on his shelves waiting to possess the toys

Yes, it is two minutes and 25 seconds into, look who's talking to. Now, I think maybe you guys don't agree, but we have all had that experience as young children, or trying to get to sleep in your dark bedroom, and you start to imagine weird shit about the stuff in your room. Your previously gentle toys do take on a nightmarish aspect.

So it spoke to me. It spoke to me too, And I think she's quite intuitive about understanding a very young child's brain in both movies. Even there's a scene in this movie where, you know, it's like all from Roseanne's POV and the kids are all kind of coming in and, oh, sorry, the kids, John Travolta and Kirsty Alley coming on this looking at her and it is quite Terry Killiam-esque. And then they leave and she's just with the nanny. And I thought that that was quite an interesting little moment. Like I did connect to it, I found it quite visceral. That's what it feels like to be a baby.

The core issue of this movie is that she has like an overabundance of Mikey ideas. There's a little bit of a sense of what to do with Julie in relation to Mikey. Uh-huh, right. She has no idea what to do with Travolta and Allie. Yeah. And they are your main actors. Right. Um, the birth sequence, which is not long after, because they do a little bit of in utero stuff

with a freaky puppet, but it's, you know, a bridge. The movie, after the opening credits, the movie basically jumps to her being eight or nine months pregnant. Yeah, exactly. Like, then now there's a time jump to she is at the end of her pregnancy. But the birth sequence is a C-section where, like, the cord is wrapped around the baby's neck,

and there's, you know, the mildest suggestion of like, oh yeah, this is like a stressful birth. Also kind of dark and nightmarish. Yes. Especially because the puppet, the baby puppet this time, is really odd. It's really strange. It's not good. I don't know if they rushed it.

It's very 2001 dream child made while blindfolded. Is the puppet as bad in the first movie? Maybe it kind of is. But this is like a thing I have a fondness for, is like how bizarre looking the baby puppets are. Right. But yeah. Yes.

Yeah. But again, like, right. It's like, so that's dark. And then yeah, once the baby is born, the vibe is basically like Travolta and Allie at each other's throats. Travolta's struggling in his new pilot career. Ali just kind of mad at everybody. Well, as we said, they flash totally past the marriage, right? It's like we're starting the movie with the insemination. Then we're jumping ahead to she's late in her pregnancy.

Then there's the scene where she goes to visit Olympia Dukakis, and she's complaining about how much she hates Travolta, refers to him as her husband, and you're like, oh, so they're married now. That happened. That happened somewhere. And Dukakis is sort of like, he's a schlump. He should be more like your brother. She's the MVP of these movies, I think. I mean, Dukakis is...

She's just solid, like, as a rock, right? She's never gonna... And she's in the third one too. Yeah, she sticks with it. So, bread bless of her coming back for that one. I think Siegel might return for the third one. That sounds right. Which is. Well, we need closure on that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I wonder what he must, like, cause I feel like they must just have to introduce more tension into the marriage. Right. I guess.

But they're like doing his accounting. Who's accounting? Travolta. Because she comes from a family of accountants. Everyone in her family is an accountant. Right. And it's Amy Heckerling's dad, of course, once again, playing the dad with the adding machine.

And they're doing the math on how little Travolta is making as a flight instructor, even though Mikey keeps defending that's not his main job and Kirstie Ali's defending it's not his main job. And they're sort of like, he's gotta kick it into gear. He's gotta be more like your insane fascist right wing vigilante brother. So the movie's like trying to set up like, what is their drama gonna be?

When what you don't want is for their relationship to go through trouble because the first movie is setting up actual obstacles towards them ending up together. But we're settled on like they have chemistry and work. It's a victory. Exactly. Right. And I think to take the pin out of like what should this movie be right?

I couldn't land on quite the right thing But you want it to be like them going through a struggle Not with their relationship to each other sure but just like their Taking off they're both working. They have two kids. How do they handle all of this almost as sort of like? How do we find time to keep our relationship? Fresh and engage with each other versus like... They keep trying to have dates, but they go wrong.

Right. Right. That's sort of the charming version of it versus like all the grownup stuff in this movie is incredibly hostile and is sort of just them yelling at each other for 76 brisk minutes while Elias Kodiak just fucks things up? I guess, sort of. He's in and out. You kind of forget he exists for a while,

and then he's back, right? You know what I mean? Like, he's not too consistent. Yeah. But do you think part of that too is like, she's created this setup with the Cure Ciali character in the first movie that is a reflection of her own personal thing with the Rey Miss affair, right?

Transposing it onto a slightly different set of circumstances, this woman having to be a single mother rather than in a marriage, and then she's created this sort of fantasy movie version of like, and this charming movie star taxi cab driver comes in and charms everyone, wins everyone over and then it's just like well now her fantasy Has played out what happens next? Especially while her marriage is dissolving in real time while she's making this movie with her husband So then the movie ends up being this reflection of a couple just being like what the fuck are we doing together? Like with this weird hostility

Yeah, which it's like that married to what I think are some genuine What the fuck are we doing together? Like with this weird hostility. Which it's like that, married to what I think are some genuine observations in why this movie hit for us when we were children, Max, of just like, this movie kind of gets the way the world looks when you are that age. And I also, as a kid, I loved all the tax scenes. I mean, I did. You loved the tax scenes. I liked that scene when, I loved all the tax scenes. I mean, I did. I loved the taxing. I liked, I liked that scene when, you know, the tax season scene.

Do you remember that scene? Oh, I remember the tax season. I remember really liking that. I'm struggling to remember it. I watched this movie 12 hours ago. What happened is, which scene are we talking about here? It's like they're all together. It's a Saturday night.

They're like, why aren't we going out in the town? And they're all really getting into David really related to this movie in a different way. It's a good joke where the three of the twin Kaplan, Elias, Cody, has fallen in love. Here's another this movie's odd relationship with time. Think twin Kaplan has like five distinctly different hairstyles that almost feel like they happen out of sequential order. When she is introduced, she has like a tight little orphan Annie Bob. There's a stretch of scenes where she has the world's longest ponytail, but like the scenes before and after that her hair is short.

Well, when you're shooting for 61 days, maybe continuity just gets away from you. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how else to explain that. They look like wigs, but it also makes me wonder if some of this movie was reconstructed in post. Cause the other thing that comes out is that, and I was trying to find deeper sources for this. But it's like, you're looking for something that does not exist. No one ever bothered to report on this movie. The lawsuit probably didn't fucking help anything. No, right.

Everything has to get buried in. Yeah, but okay, what are you... The Wikipedia and the IMDb, which of course are both fan edited, both have the same claim that when this aired on cable television, which is where I watched it many times... There's deleted scenes added. ...that there was 20 minutes of extra scenes. Yeah, because they needed to get it to two hours. Totally.

But so they're just like large swaths of this movie missing. And one of the things they said there's multiple instances of is that Kirstie Alley keeps having recurring fantasies that are different stylized dream sequences of Travolta cheating on her. And you have the one red Corvette scene. Do you think that's because Travolta's like, hey, I want to fuck some ladies in this movie. Maybe. They were like, all right, we'll do dream sequences, I guess. But the one example of it happens in the tax season scene, which is like the three of, after Travolta has left, the three of them are doing taxes together and Keirsti Alley is like, look at us, isn't this depressing?

We're staying at home on a Saturday night doing taxes. And then twin Kaplan, Elias, Cody S and Eunice and say, it's tax season. Like it's their national holiday. And then Keirsti Alley zones out and imagines Travolta like racing with some bimba. It's like a Wild at Heart-esque. Right, but apparently there's like a Yoko Ono, John Lennon parody scene. Sounds a little Route 1.

But sure. All of this sounds insane. Why don't we have any of this footage? I couldn't find it. I'd love to see all this. I'm sure you could find this sort of extended TV cut somewhere. I was digging. Well, but you know, you might need a week or two.

I might need a month. Exactly. I might need a year. You might need to really go deep. Yeah. You could like start hitting up like VHS festivals and be like, can anyone record Luke who's talking to off TV? Cause that's almost definitely the version

I would have seen. There's also supposedly, there's like a scene where she either threatens to spank or spanks Mikey for being bad. The scene where Mikey pushes the stroller without, you know, asking. And then Keir Stiali supposedly was like, I object to spanking. I don't want there to be a spanking scene. Demanded to be cut, but then it's back in the TV version. To go to your point though about the film feeling like it's been reconstructed in post, it is a movie that is filled with ADR.

Yes. Yes. But in quite unusual- Some of it is because the babies are talking. Some babies are talking. That's not live audio. I don't know if you guys caught that. Sometimes it's inexplicable.

You'll be in like an interior scene where there's a very controlled environment and none of the dialogue seems to be rewritten and yet all of the dialogue is ADR'd. Right. And sometimes ADR, like very apparent ADR is punching in for like two words in the middle of a sentence. Yep. Yeah. I noticed that too. All of that was, was raising a lot of questions that didn't have answers. Yes. Right, we haven't really talked about the fundamental thing, quandary in this movie, which is that Mikey, who I guess by now is two and a half, three, somewhere in there.

I had no fucking idea who this kid was. He seemed like he could be 11 months old. He's so, he's an advanced toddler. Sure. But he's, I mean, he's nine months older than he is at the beginning of the movie, which is the end of the first movie. Don't ask me to. But then, he's like...

But then, Julie seemingly ages... Yeah, I think he goes from sort of like two and a half to three and a half slash four, and she goes from birth to like one and a half to three and a half slash four And she goes from birth to like one and a half right something like that He is talking in this movie It's not like the first movie where his thoughts are merely being projected to the audience and it's a baby And it's clearly a baby that's just being a baby and he of course says only one word at the end of the first He says data, right?

Big moment yes in that movie. Not in this movie. In this movie, whenever he's talking with the voice of Bruce Willis, the boy is going... He's flapping his mouth and saying something. Constantly. Not, I believe, what we are hearing. Wait, really?

Well, I don't know. I thought he was just not talking to anyone the whole time. Well, they're also talking. But he is talking. There are moments. Say, there's so many to talk about. And he said, right, sometimes he'll say, like, penis, for example. He says penis several times.

Oh, I guess so. No penis, right? There's that whole sequence. And that is said in the voice of the child actor, not Bruce Willis. Both see through in Vancouver. Right. Right? Like there are times.

So they call it out, though, but he's not the whole time speaking out loud, I don't think. Well, this is what's interesting is at certain moments when the lips are flapping, they almost sync up with what Bruce Willis is saying. Yeah. Where you're like, did she have the kid on set do his best to say what she had written? Dude, the final button of the movie when they're sort of, I don't know, standing around together, he's fully articulating words. And-

Matthew Feeney Right. As a child his age would be. Guyon McHugh As a child his age would be. And there's something completely different in the voiceover. Matthew Feeney He's saying something on the lines of like, I want a cookie. And Bruce Willis is like, Hey, this kid's right, what a smooth cat over here. Like Bruce Willis is like, Hey, this kid's right here. What a smooth cat over here. Like Bruce Willis is doing his bullshit.

But sometimes it does feel close and they react to him as if they understand the basic thing he's trying to say. It's illogical. Uh-huh. And we talked about Rugrats, I believe, on the last episode. Yes, we talked about Rugrats. And in Rugrats, I don't know, Max, if you're a Rugrats kid. I was a Rugrats kid.

We, as we sort of dug into it, it's like Angelica was on both sides. Right. She could speak to the babies and to the grownups. Right. Angelica is sort of, let's say, Mikey's age in this movie. Somewhat of a Mikey, sort of a three-year-old type. Where she's got a foot in each world. Whereas the babies would speak, but only to each other. Yes.

And it was implied that the parents,'t hear them essentially when they spoke. But she can sort of be a conduit between the two. That logic, while blurry, is much stricter and more logical than whatever's going on in this movie. Yes, I would agree. Right, whereas this movie is basically more like, what do you think your baby's actually saying when he's talking, I guess?

I mean, look, perhaps I'm being too generous to the film, and I don't think they nail it down, but I read the attempt as... the kid has verbal capabilities, but his inner life is richer and deeper than what he is able to say. Yeah. Right? That he is at early stages of language.

And so he is able to externalize certain? That he is at early stages of language. And so he is able to externalize certain things to the outside world. But they are more simple, like saying the word penis six times. And Bruce Willis is the inner monologue of what he wishes he had the language to express. And they should have had a distinct voice for that. For which? Interesting. They should have had a baby voice, even if it is like V.O. Like, hey man. There are, there's no bad ideas right now.

We're figuring this out. There are moments where the kid talks in his own voice, I'm saying. Yeah, but there's maybe- It's really just the penis moment. Yeah, I think there's maybe one or two moments. Are there any others? It's a good question. The penis moment is what I'm remembering. Well, we cannot forget the penis moment.

Well, we can talk about it right now. It's a scene with absolutely no problematic overtones whatsoever, in which I guess they're educating Mikey on how he has a penis and his sister does not. They're giving Julie a bath and he's very concerned by her lack of penis. Right. And then they start flipping through a magazine,

asking him to, pointing at every celebrity they see and be, like, penis or no penis? Well, first she says, I think we got to give him the talk. And I was like, are you we gotta give him the talk. And I was like, are you gonna give him the birds and the bees talk? And the talk is just... There are women and men.

Genitals are different, I guess that's what they mean, yes. So she takes out a magazine and points at like, Sylvester Stallone and... Goldie Hawn. Goldie Hawn, George Bush Senior. Is there a fourth one? I think it's, no, the joke is they land on HW Bush. Rule of three.

And they can't, and he's like, I don't know. And they're like, ha ha ha. Which I guess is basically just saying like, George HW Bush is kind of a dweeb. Like, it doesn't really track. I think it's Bush. Okay. That's the joke.

Do you think so? I think it's a Bush joke, yes. No matter what, it was a better version. I was so afraid of some more kind of- You were afraid they were gonna point to RuPaul. Yeah, kind of homophobic joke or like a, you know, a sort of it's Pat situation of like, oh, this lady looks like a man or what,

some shit like that. So that was better, but also I was kinda like, I don't really get it. Yes, but then the kid learns to say penis and says penis out loud in his own voice A bunch. Yes, not Bruce Willis voice. Sure, right. I think what this movie is The the Mikey stuff in the movie works a lot better for me the Mikey stuff in this movie. Yes Yeah, because like the travails of a toddler is something new. Whereas Roseanne's character Yeah, because like the travails of a toddler is something new, whereas Roseanne's character, Roseanne, the baby, Julie,

is just going through the same shit as we already saw that in the first movie. Right. There's no, there's nothing new there, really. To try to tell the story of the kind of like, the, you know, a thing I relate to very strongly, which is the feeling of disruption in your world where you stop being the one baby. And there's another thing here. Well, you've actually, because of your sister Romilly, you probably know this dynamic.

I'm also the older. We've all experienced... I'm an only child, so I don't have this. Same. Okay. Well, Griff and I, right, we both endured the entrance of a new sibling. Yes. Now, you had the additional, you were way older

when there was a third sibling, but that feels less traumatic. That's probably more interesting than anything. It was interesting. Right. When I had the distance of being like, I'm watching what a baby is like with a little bit of perspective versus when James was born, I was three and I had this real like. It's an equilibrium. Who the fuck is this guy? So James is your Julie.

James is my Julie. Now, supposedly I got along great with my brother. I've always been told that I was not, I was a smooth transition on that front. Right, I got along horribly with my brother. But even when he was a baby? Yeah, I tried to knock him out of the crib. I didn't like him.

Now what are we talking about here, knock him out of the crib? Like he's standing up and you're trying to pull him out. What's going on? No, he's sleeping down and I'd be trying out of the crib. I didn't like him. Now what are we talking about here, knock him out of the crib? Like he's standing up and you're trying to pull him out. What's going on? No, he's sleeping down and I'd be trying to push him. I'd like, unlatch the thing. I was trying to push him out. My God.

Yeah. Dude, Ben, I hear stories like this. Like there's an extended family story where like someone put a baby down a laundry chute. Like it's crazy. Children have no real empathy. So you kind of gotta keep your head on this story. This is why I asked you when your twins were born.

They don't understand death. Sure, sure, sure. When your twins were born, and I've continued to ask you semi-regularly, how does your daughter get along with them? It's not been an issue. And I ask this with all of my friends who then have a second kid. Because it can be an issue. Because I'm so worried because I remember being such a fucking little menace to James

and being like, let's kick this thing to the curb. Get him out of here. No, I think because my daughter loves baby dolls and you know what I mean, all of the sort of play of babies, like feeding and shit, right? Which a lot of kids do. She just locked in with them as like little toys. Sure. Pretty quickly.

I don't know, she loves them. There's been no issue yet. I imagine there'll be issues once they can fuck with her toys. Oh, sure. That's sort of like the next level, right, where it's sort of like, then you've got this sibling who's like messing with your stuff.

Well, that's when things got even worse for my brother and I. But you're starting it with them like prepping him to be like, are you ready to be a big brother? And then he has this fantasy sequence of like taking her to FAO shorts alone and taking her out on the town where it's sort of like, oh, Mikey's excited at the prospect of the responsibility. Right. Sure. Like being helpful or whatever. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the movie kind of can't pick a lane between, like, does he feel a need to protect

her or does he not like having her around? It will alternate. Yeah, which I guess sort of naturalistic tracks. Sort of the Mike Lee element of the movie. Oh, yeah, yeah. I think Mike Lee, when I... He did a pass on the script. Right, yeah.

No, he did this thing where they did six weeks. He came in for one week. He script. Right, yeah. Yeah. No, he did his thing where they did six weeks. He just came in for one week. Yeah, if you think this movie is rude to Cure Ciali's character, it came out of the improv. It came out of the words. Right, they did all these rehearsals where it's like, so Elias Cotius, you know, Cotius, Elias Cotius?

Elias Cotius. I always say Elias Cotius. Chases a robber out of a house with a gun and, you know, the recycling catches on fire. What would you do? And the babies are like, Oh, that's interesting. I assume that's how Mike Lee works. I don't really actually know.

Well, the babies did a pass as well. Babies did a pass. That's David, yes. You ever lift a little too hard? Uh, sure. You mean? Yeah.

Lift something too heavy. Yeah. No, I mean like you're, you're lifting, you know, you're at the gym You're getting your reps and you lift too hard Then you start you start stinking up the place you forget to apply your daily deodorant and get hit by a truckload of BO From all directions. Oh, I can't say that I have but okay. Okay, so I guess this is more kind of my personal experience I can speak to this from a perspective having this problem every day So I'm doing my reps. I got my boys spotting me and then ding-dong. Oh

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Crow-ger, groger, Groderger. Griffin, David. What? I have news. OK, OK. I'm buckled in. My beloved cat pig pig. He's come up many times on the show. Hey, deep lore. She deserves the world. Of course. And you try your hardest to give it to her. I know that about you.

I do everything I can to keep Pig healthy. I give her the best treats, the best food, the best toys. Okay, but then when it comes to Litter, you just, you disregard, you drop the ball there, right? No, Griffin. That's actually incorrect. Oh no. Because I started using Pretty Litter and it's the best litter and a total game. It's a game. The game has been changed

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on your first order and get a free cat toy. Prettylitter.com slash check. Pretty Litter cannot detect every feline health issue Check to save 20% on your first order and get a free cat toy pretty litter comm Check pretty litter cannot detect every feline health issue or prevent or diagnose diseases a diagnosis can only come from a licensed veterinarian Terms and conditions apply see site for details The scene I fucking loved as a kid and I really enjoyed again Maybe just out of nostalgia was the attempt to get into Total Recall Okay, because when you're a kid all you want to do is go to an R rated movie Yes, but but the other fun angle of it is that Travolta is just like I kind of want to see this grown-up movie I got two kids now. I never get a break. Yeah, so it's very...

It's appropriate, 1990, right? Like, Total Recall is the hot new movie. Has just been released in the summer. Right, that film came out summer of 1990. And it is not appropriate for children. He's taken to a theater that is playing on one screen, Total Recall, and on the other screen, seemingly a compilation of Betty Boop shorts.

He does say that the other option is Betty Boop. They don't really explain, which is also kind of grown up. Yeah. For a cartoon. He also, they're separated. He has, he has time on his hands. No, you're right. And he's actually just being the worst dad.

He's like living up to the stereotype of a deadbeat dad. Yeah, so cons him his way into the theater. So he does this move. A charming rogue. Okay, okay. They kind of a deadbeat dad. Yeah, so con him his way into the theater. So he does this move that- A charming rose. Okay, okay. They kind of explain it as kind of like, the old I left my shoe in the theater trick, and I was watching it being like,

damn, that's a good trick. Right, because Bruce is going like, ah, dad, come on, don't do the shoe. Return to Bruno. Where like, yeah, he like pockets one shoe and is like, hey, my kid left his shoe, can I go get it? And that's how they get into the theater. I mean- I love that bit. I filed that away. I know, I was and is like, hey, my kid left his shoe. Can I go get it? And that's how they get into the theater.

I mean, I loved that bit. I filed that away. I know I was kind of like thinking on your feet, Barbara. And the popcorn bucket was also really ingenious. And then when you cut out of the movie, both the kids have chocolate ice cream all over their faces and he's apologizing to them. But did they watch Trouble Recall?

They did. Yeah, they did. Yes, absolutely. So why isn't there a scene where for the next couple weeks He's going like you know doing some lines from trouble like what is it two weeks right? Yeah? You should do that right they should do that or like consider that a divorce. Yes do that But this is right in stone She's concerned that he doesn't have enough drive in his life right mostly because of her parents pressure

Yeah, also he is a taxi driver come Sort of airline sort of pilot teacher whatever he does have a weird kind of life But he makes like twenty two dollars a month teaching classes And he's like I basically don't have enough time to teach classes because I'm busy parenting and driving a cab What I really want is to actually get a job I'm busy parenting and driving a cab. What I really want is to actually get a job flying for one of the airlines.

Then Elias Kourios just shows up at the door with the NYPD cap, is basically like, I'm here, I'm gonna stay on your couch with my gun. Then she at some point says, like, he might be able to help you get a job. He somehow hooks Travolta up with what seems to be a, like, rent-your-own private jet airline I think it's the parents though. I don't think it's the brother doesn't don't they say that he knows somebody I

You know what? I wasn't paying very close attention. It's a naughty plot So I don't remember this The Spanish prisoner or whatever it's just kind of like so dense. There's so many double crosses No, I didn't remember who it's basically, but it's like a charter airline Yes, he's basically like the fanciest form of limo driver, right? He's getting off these charter flights and the rich people are like, where's my briefcase? He's entitled customer. You basically get to this halfway point in the movie where he hates Elias Cody ass You basically get to this halfway point in the movie where he hates Elias Kodiass

Kirstie Alley will not brook any criticism of her beloved brother, right? He's also stressed out and busy from his job Which she thought would make him happier if he had a sense of purpose But instead it's causing more fraying at the edges and then they get into this fight based on the gun because Travolta... Is like there shouldn't be a gun in the home. He walks out in the middle of the night and Cody has pulled the gun on him. Right? Cody mistakes him for a stranger when he comes home late and pulls a gun on him, which is

a sign of Cody is maybe not having like the most responsible attitude to gun ownership for he's like, I'm pulling a gun to that door Right and then at the halfway point in the movie basically they just split up. Yeah sort of Yeah, yeah, he's still around a lot and he comes and he takes care of the kids Well, cuz he is the biological father of one and the de facto father of the other does an extended dance sequence at the Jim Berry equivalent It's freaking John Travolta we're talking about. I gotta have him dancing. Right. He's great. Yeah, he's always great.

That seems awesome. Max, you ever worked with John Travolta? I've never worked with John Travolta. Next thing you know, John Travolta. Never crossed paths. But no, actually, it's not true. I met him at the rat party for primary colors. Okay. Wild.

And he wasn't very nice, actually. You would have been a teenager? I guess I was a teenager, yeah. Why were you at the rat party? I remember being quite excited to meet him and he wasn't particularly engaged. That's too bad. I mean, I'm not like stunned to hear this.

He was maybe still in character. Well, no. I did move a little. That guy was a schmoozer. He would have been nicer. He would have been, yeah. He would have done a double handshake. Yeah, exactly. Isn't that what it is? One on the elbow. He would have been nicer. He would have done a double handshake. Exactly. One on the elbow.

He would have been playing sax. I Googled Max Mugella, John Travolta, and all I got was an IMDb piece of trivia from the film Spiral, which you are in. It was from the Book of Saw. You opened the book. Which apparently the police basement vault door in that movie is manufactured by a company called Jules and Vincent, a sly reference to pulp fiction. LLOYD That's right. I remember seeing that actually on the wall and, oh, cause Sam Jackson's

in the movie. That makes sense. Now, now I make the connection. RIDGEN There you go. LLOYD No, I've never- RIDGEN No, because you weren't like, I'm making a movie. You were like, the book of Saw has been opened and I simply must follow its commands. RIDGEN I'm stuck between the pages like a bookmark. LLOYD Exactly. I'm just a small cog in the, in the saw machine. Well, you're more of a spiral.

But I'm a John Travolta fan. I think he's a movie star. And he's specific, you know, in the first one, especially he's really, he's really charming. And I do think he's like, David is going to shake his head adamantly. What about that? So I do think that Kirsty Alley and John Travolta in this movie carry over a, some kind of natural rapport. Like even though they're fighting the whole time, they have a, they have an ease with each other as actors. I know I'll give you that.

I think it's sort of, I'll give you that. I think it's sort of, it's kind of leftover, it's a bit of a half-life from the last movie, but it sort of helps make the movie survive. They do have something. The existing chemistry. It's part of why I think. Even if they don't get to really deploy it.

Them splitting up doesn't work for me because the whole time I'm like, they could talk through this. They just need to have like three conversations. It's like classic rom-com shit, except like it's kind of the laziest version of it. And I think also the movie does Kirstie Alley-Durney in that she's kind of the problem in all of the fights.

Right. Travolta, it's basically like, hey, why don't you make enough money? Why do you care that my brother has a gun? Right. And so you're just kind of like, she's being a pain in the ass, which is not fair. And being annoyed that he's not happy. Right. Right.

And I think it's... And he's only complaining, like, hey, we never have sex anymore, you know, or whatever. Right. I hate the artificial obstruction in rom-coms, and it's part of what I was so pleasantly surprised by in the first one that it's like, no, there's the moment at like the halfway point where they hook up and then she stops it because she's like, I gotta be responsible.

This is almost too intense and I'm raising a child. Right. A young child. Which feels like a human obstacle. Sure. And something that can be resolved through the growth of the characters versus this It's like the movie is trying to like throw shit at them and that just have both of them React kind of petulantly and then you get to this insane finale. We're like It's a huge question

The finale you're setting up because we have Eli Kodius on the couch with the gun. As you said, it's a Chekhov's gun situation. Before we get to that. Somehow this is gonna come back into play. For the first time, I'm the one who's like, if we can backtrack slightly, Uh-huh. There's this kind of great,

but then also fully irrelevant moment where Kirsi Alley just gets in her head that Travolta can't be flying tonight. It's stormy outside, she's scared for him. So she drops everything, she leaves the children in the care of her psycho brother, which is insane, but that's what she does, and that sets up what is coming next.

Right, first she calls and she says, hey, can you reach out to him? And they said, no, he's already in the plane. And she says, can you call him? And they say, no, he's already in the plane. And she says, can you call him? And they say, no. So then she gets in a cab and she seemingly arrives at the airport within 35 seconds. Right, she gets there weirdly fast.

And then we cut to some B-roll from entrapment as a... Uh, window is unsealed. Right, then there's a break-in from a master thief who's carving a hole in the window. You do get all of that. Who plays the thief? Using expert tools. Yeah.

The thief seems to be played by like the A-cam operator. To steal what? Baby clothes? Like I don't even know what he's after in this house. Seems to only be targeting their program. It's one of the most bizarre decisions. Strange contrivance to have the reason they're out of the house be. She kind of has this flash of sympathy for Travolta and gets on a plane to tell him not

to fly and he's like, well then will you shut up for life? She breaks into the cockpit basically saying, I have a terrible feeling and I'm having like a premonition. It's like a final destination situation. That you're going to die, you need to not take off on this this plane and it feels like she's getting to the point where she like This forces her to admit the I love you. I want you I've never stopped loving I had a flash of what my life would be without you and he's basically like shut up I work in an airport

Like they would tell me if it's not safe to fly and then like one second later like not safe to fly and he's like All right, let's go home. It's just weird. It's just weird, right? Right and they're like I guess like you were proven right but in a way that was unnecessary to come here because They were never gonna let me take off anyway, which sort of proves him right which is he was like look if it's not safe To fly they won't let me fly. He's right So I will fly until they give me the word which they then do. And her reason for going there should be them reconnecting and loving each other, which is what's happening, but they don't really, it's not really there. But now we have like,

anyways, they're so they're not like, I'd argue that she's too grounded. Yes. But also we're like at a tarmac with insane movie rain and we've shown her like cab driving. Like all of this seems expensive and complicated, right? This is not an easy set piece, even if we don't have like a plane taking off. It's an expensive location. It's weather. It's all of this. Then we're cross cutting with the thief breaking in. Elias Kodiak responds. You're like, oh, this is why this character has what they would refer to as these Travis Bickle delusions of being a vigilante He pulls his gun on the guy who then runs out right and Elias the guy who's like, hey man

I was just here for a baby bouncer. I'm sorry chases him out to the street Yeah, he doesn't have any stuff with him at this point. He's like run out because he's been caught. Right. There's no reason to chase him. But this guy's so over cranked with the idea of being a hero, you're like, well, this is why he has the gun, except it doesn't really matter. It's like the gun empowers him to leave, to run down the street in the hopes of shooting this guy, which doesn't happen.

And then the second he leaves the kids alone, the apartment catches on fire. Well, he left a fucking frying pan cooking. Like an idiot. Not only that, they left a bucket of paper for recycling, I guess newspapers and stuff, like next to the oven. Does anybody think this was reverse engineered, maybe a little bit?

You think like, Cure Ciali subconsciously has kind of been like, I wanna die. I wanna die in a fire. You're right that Curse the Alley subconsciously has kind of been like, I want to die. I want to die in a fire. But you're right that it does feel like some weird final destination set up. It does. After the plane thing is final destination, and this is a different final destination.

Can somebody recut this sequence into a sort of final destination teaser and then submit it to the Patriots? No, for 100%. One of those great teasers where you're like seeing a horror movie, the trailer starts and it's just like someone going like, do-do-do-do, frying egg, and you're like, what's this movie? And then they go like, huh, let me go get my knife for, you know, and you're like, oh, it's Final Destination. To what we were talking about earlier.

I'm going to re-watch them all, I think. The first movie clearly has the studio note of like something more exciting needs to happen at the end. There need to be stakes. So they reverse engineer this somewhat absurd car chase thing where Mikey sneaks into the front seat of a car that's being towed and then gets stuck in traffic and they have to go save him which proves that John Travolta cares and then he says data, right? And it like is a studio note but it feels like the exact right size

Oh look they got a tiny version of what feels like almost an action scene at the end of this movie They clearly came to her with a similar thing of like there need to be Stakes need a little bit of a juicy climax and they throw three things at the wall at the same time that all are insane yes that are all happening parallel in a way that does feel like it's like death has an agenda. There is a balance. This family should not exist. Right. And it teaches the kids the lesson that they love each other, I guess. But he's already kind of learned that lesson. I know. Yeah. I mean, we haven't even talked about it, but the like dynamic between the brother and the sister, it's so unclear.

You know, sometimes it's like, are they ever like, you can't tell if they're even fighting or just like the juice of the movie. I know. And it's not there at all. Right. Cause he has the sequence where he like, there's a long montage where he like remembers the first look who's talking. If you haven't seen this movie, it has more montages than Rocky V.

Yes. I mean it's an absurd number. For a movie that's 75 minutes long, it has multiple like end of horizon and American Saga-esque. We also have a good reference to that. That Damon Waynes of course plays another toddler who has some jokes and that there is a talking toilet voiced by Mel Brooks to represent the horrors of potty training. I mean, I know we briefly mentioned that.

Mr. Toilet kind of is fun. He's good. That's a toilet rules. I had no issues with that. He's going to bite your tushy if you don't give him poop and pee. He sprays blue like spits when he talks. He sprays like kind of cleaning fluid. And they have this weird-

Come on, you're laughing. This weird- I love your enthusiasm for this. This weird cousin cover on the toilet that then turns into like a walrus mustache and killer vampire fang. The thing that it gets when they're trying to first prep Mikey on toilet training,

where they're like, you know, you're gonna, you know, is him being like, I don't wanna poop outside my diaper. That's what nobody tells you about toilet training is that kids are like, the experience of pooping into the void is night and day from pooping into a thing that catches it right on your butt. Sure. And they just don't get it.

What's so low hassle? It is low hassle for them, that's true. I think there's like- I poop in the diaper and then you take care of the rest? But like they start to get annoyed by getting changed cause it's a fucking pain in the diaper and then you take care of the rest? But like they start to get annoyed by getting changed because it's a fucking pain in the ass when you're like a three-year-old and you've taken a, you know, a regular person's poop. But like, they just, I think there's something physical about like getting caught.

You know what I mean? I don't know how to describe it. Here's the real thing I think the movie's getting at that I think is smart. I have successfully potty trained my daughter. Congratulations's the real thing I think the movie's getting at that I think is smart. I have successfully potty trained my daughter. Congratulations. Thank you. Only two more to go. Yeah, seriously.

Look who's talking reboot. Okay, listen. A lot of people have circled this. Oh, and also we didn't talk about the baby talk. I don't know if you want to... I have so much more to say. I watched... Oh, go keep going Griffin, keep going. Well, I just want to finish this Mr. Toilet thought. Okay, sure. What I like, what I think is smart about this and goes back to my like,

she had like scraps of ideas, is that they're trying to potty train him, right? He's against it for all the reasons you just listed David. I like that he basically cross references with Damon Waynes and is like hey Your parents trying to do this like fucking body training bullshit, and he's like yeah, mr Toilet who eats your poop in your pee, and it's that thing of like oh, right Parents say different things to their kids right and then when you put kids in a social situation They start comparing notes, and they don't track. Right.

Because you have that earlier thing where Mikey's like in bed trying to fall asleep and he's doing the math on like, okay, so like ninjas are real, but dragons aren't? Dinosaurs used to be real? No, he says like monsters used to be real, but dinosaurs aren't, or is it the other way around? There's like a joke like that That's but there's a joke of like a kid starting to under like Reckon with real-world logic of like which things and stories used to happen in history and which things are completely Created in the way of like kids on a playground Everyone currently has their head buried in their hands as I try to unpack this

But like comparing notes on Santa Claus and the story falling apart, I like that Damon Waynes introduces to him this thing that is like, my parents told me this and I like it, but to Mikey, it's the scariest shit in the world. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's different strokes for different folks, I guess. I don't know. I mean- This is the benefit of doing a baby writer room. Yes! They give you some insight that you wouldn't get from grown adults. The Mr. Toilet Prop, sold at auction last year. Oh, did it now.

In immaculate condition, as part of the big Planet Hollywood auction that happened when most of the locations closed down, they got rid of the archives. It's a little yellowed. I don't know if we're talking I'm talking immaculate I think it looks pretty fucking Surprised that it only sold for $5,000. Oh really for such a hero prop in good condition Working mechanisms. What do you do with it after you get it? What do you do with it? You call plumber Then if you saw that online on eBay $5,000 you would be making some phone calls to see if it's do imagine Oh, I'm sure my wife would exactly you go on a date like you come home and the guy you know

Hey, where's your bathroom? Oh, it's the second door on the left. You walk in there and you're confronted with Mr. Toilet. And I just want to say that's the first time I said my wife. Hey, and I feel like this is a perfect moment. My wife, you would not submit so romantic. Yeah, exactly. I can't wait to report back to her about Mr. Toilet. Um, look. I can tell you that, not to spoil and look who's talking now, but Willis, Barr, and Wayans are not part of that movie. Along with Amy Heckerling. The kids have grown up in the third movie. The now is referring to dogs.

The voices are just the dogs. But they found some real acts, isn't it? Like Diane Keaton. Diane Keaton and Danny DeVito. The big two. And David Gallagher from 7th Heaven plays Mikey. Sounds great. Who's now like five or six.

Right. Yes. But yes, reports of a reboot have bubbled away since 2010 when Neil Moritz... Of the Fast and Furious and Sonic franchises said he was considering a reboot and Amy Heckerling said... Griffin, can you tell me what I'm doing? Oh, she did the John Carpenter. I love the idea of a reboot because if they do that, they'll have to pay me.

Exactly. That's like, I have no interest in being involved, but money goes in this hand here, whatever you want to do that. But they're basically three reboot things. Neil Mauritz gets the rights. hires Jeremy Garrelick, who wrote The Breakup. Screen Gems brings in Jeremy Garrelick to write a...

and direct. The Breakup is a phenomenal movie. Breakup's a masterpiece. The Breakup is the Peyton Reed film. That film was very good. It's an excellent movie. Yes, it is excellent. And it's the kind of movie we need more of today

in our rom-com-less, you know, Hollywood. It's one we're talking about where it's like there are no artificial conflicts. That is a movie actually about people fighting in a way that feels like And. Right. But I guess nothing came of that. Kiki Palmer. His qualification, by the way, in writing the film was that he has four children. He has four children, including twins.

So he's got me beat by one. Kiki Palmer on the No Press Tour was basically like, let me at a Look Who's Talking film. It doesn't need to be related. It can be a reboot, it can be a sequel, whatever. We can just rip it off. I want to do my version of that. And then Heckerling weighed in recently and said her and her daughter... Last year said that her daughter Molly

Yeah, the inspiration for the first film of course was working on a script with her. Yes Who knows if it'll become a thing maybe you know now that's a little sad in a way But also a little sweet of like hey, maybe things came full circle for her and she decided like I'll work on this with my kid Or maybe a hand me heckling was like how the fuck do I get something made in Hollywood? Do I have to do a look who's talking for? Right. Fine. Right.

I don't know. So as we've talked about, almost everyone involved in these movies is dead or incapacitated. But I guess the idea is that Travolta's still out there. Travolta's still out there. The idea is that you could do grownup Mikey, which I have to assume is the pitch. I was thinking about that because it is the obvious way to go. Yeah. But would you lose something by telling the story from a male perspective?

Like I do think there's something really beneficial in that first film. I also think that's probably why the fucking Garelyk Moritz version never came about because even if they were writing with a female lead. I think Neil Moritz has shown exemplary sensitivity. If that's a man with taste and class. No, look, he's made some amazing movies. He made so many classic films. I mean, I know what you did last summer is a Moritz iconic.

I'm a fan of his work, but I do think we're all agreeing that like the special sauce is that the first movie in particular comes from a female perspective. And he did the escape rooms. The first escape room is amazing. It is. The second one, well, the whole weird thing with the second one where there's two versions and one is lore heavy and one is not, It kind of hamstrung the whole thing. Yeah.

The first one was really promising. The first one rocks. Yeah. Look who's talking. I think there's a bit of a stigma with a talking baby. Okay. I think like the Baby Geniuses movies, the E-Trade ads, it just has such a... Which then became its own sitcom as well, Baby Bob.

And what a sitcom it was. Yeah. Like it has such a stigma of then became its own sitcom as well, Baby Bob. And what a sitcom it was. Yeah. Like it has such a stigma of like the bottom of the barrel. Like if a baby is talking with a digital mouth, where you're watching the worst trash about you. I don't know if AI got involved. Now I do love it when AI gets involved. My favorite thing...

To write the screenplay, you're saying, right? No, to me I think AI should be making decisions at every level, right? Just like in the movie, right? Design, casting, to me, I think AI should be making decisions at every level. Right? Just like in the movie. Design, casting, catering. I was really surprised to hear on the, what was the last pod you guys put out? It was Jurassic, right? You both had AI as your number one Spielberg.

Yeah. It's a big one. Well, no, we were saying, because people have gotten upset about this and this will be a long settled thing that when we did our ranking of the first half of his or the latter half of his career that we both put it number one there. Oh, right. When we did our amended complete filmography. You still have it. ET has to be. ET is my number one. There you go. It has to be. ET is my number one. There you go. It has to be. ET is my number one. You still have AI as your overall. ET is my number two.

That's bat shit. I'll tell you what's bat shit. AI. Yeah. Yeah. AI is the best. Oh, it's so good. I actually pitched an idea last episode.

The industry. For look who's talking. Yeah. Let's hear it, Ben. Max might have some good feedback on this. So I'm thinking prequel. OK. Oh, yeah, he pitched this. The title, Looketh Who Talketh Now.

OK, he's actually punched up the title since the last time. It's set in the Renaissance. Yeah, he's making it sound as polished as it was last time. It was not. It's the same, basically, redo the first movie. In the Renaissance. But this time, it's in the Renaissance. So good, it'll cost a lot more.

What, you are adding a good 40 mil to the budget. Just to be clear Max, last time his pitch was just, look who's talking. Or look who spoke maybe, oh no. We said, what does that mean? And he said, it's in old times. We didn't have the specifics of the Renaissance. I refined it.

It is funny to imagine. He hadn't committed to a time period. Da Vinci being like, okay, hold still Mona Lisa. And then like a baby goes like, whoa, it like knocks the pain over. Not to be the hackiest motherfucker of all time, but here's a thought spiral. Imagine like Tom Rothman being like, that's good. Because I'm like, the baby that knocks over the pain? I'm thinking John Lithgow for da Vinci. He's like perfect. Let's go would be good Here's a genuine thought spiral. I went down last night from the book of so oh, that's very true

I thought spiral from the book of song Who who was the first baby? Who was the first baby? Yeah Usually I mean are we going biblical? Well, this is my question. I'm like I know what the biblical answer is. Do you? Kane is in theory the crane is the cane is the first child right? They had to raise Kane which then inspired Brian to palm and John Lithgow. Let's be clear. Okay, so it all goes that way It's called raisin canes. That's also why because that kid only ate chicken Yes, and was a real firecracker.

And he did murder his brother when his brother took his Texas toast. Yes, this all makes sense. No, I was just watching these two movies about pregnancy and childbirth and whatever. I did like, by the way, that Colonel Briggs comes back as her doctor again. Yeah, Don Davis does deliver the girl. I appreciate that. But if there was no historical precedent, and in theory, I understand... He was available because they hadn't even struck the sets, probably.

They were like, we're doing a sequel, just sit right there, Todd. We'll get you a turkey sandwich. What's up? I understand the reality that homo sapien evolved gradually over the centuries, right? More than centuries, my friend. Yes. Right. But it is crazy to just think about someone one day being like, I don't feel like I ate that much.

Right, or like, God, these eggs really aren't, they're kind of disgusting to me. I usually love eggs. Yeah, I'm just feeling really bloated. And then to just have a baby come out of you? So you're saying that the first baby was born in an E television, I didn't know I was pregnant style.

No. What's going on? But the reason you reminded me of this is in my insomnia last night at 1.57am I texted first I googled excuse me, first baby in the world. And AI responded it is impossible to definitively know who the very first baby in the world was as there were no historical records from that far back. Thank you, AI. Thank you for pointing that out.

And then so then I went on to cura.com, the question and answer site. And someone responded, Chuck Sears, BBA and management information systems. We have no clue. I'm assuming you mean a human baby. I couldn't get any fucking answers to that. I was losing my mind. You couldn't get answers to an impossible question. I think it's a good question. Who is the first baby? What does this got to do with the reboot? Is this your pitch for the reboot?

Well, if it's pitching prequel, then why aren't we making it the first baby? Why would we? Oh, sure. Oh, like look who's Talking year one. Yeah. Because that worked out really well too. Look Who's Talking origins. These are very, very uncommercial pitches. I'm not sure honestly that the legacy of Look Who's Talking has lasted. It does feel like it is completely forgotten.

Which is odd to me because it felt so fucking massive back in the day. But do you think the title would stir the faintest recognition? I don't think it would. It's such a familiar phrase. I feel like Three Men and a Baby also, given that that was the highest grossing movie of 1987, has also not really stuck around. I know Zac Efron was going to do it at one point and that never seemed to come to fruition. That's correct.

And then there was also a rumor of them doing a Disney plus legacy sequel of three men and a bride and bringing dancing and Gutenberg and Selig back. Selig back, yeah. Look, the thing with three men and a baby is the title does all the work for you. You're happy as hell. There's three men, there's a baby. Okay, what's gonna happen? I don't care, I'm involved.

There's a creepy ghost in the background of One Shot, cool. Promise of the premise. Look who's, there's a whole urban myth where they have like, it's a standee. It's a standee. It's a standee from a cut plot line, but it looks like there's a ghost in one scene. Like people think three men and a baby is haunted Wow

Look who's talking? Mm-hmm. It's a question to the audience. It is who's talking. I don't know you tell me who's talking There's no question mark. There is no question. No, it's a statement. Yeah, look who's talking you won't look Yeah, it's not a question. You will pay your $12 You will sit down and you will look to see who talk. It's not a question. You will pay your $12. You will sit down and you will look to see who talk It's not a question. It's a domain and of course As it turns out we don't really know who's talking and he's honestly not talking. It's more right in her monologue I guess it's kind of a lie. The question is hey who's listening?

Can they hear him pay attention? It's like he's that. Look who's doing it, huh? Yeah. What if more movies were just called, look! Look! Look at the screen! Watch this! Things will happen! Plots will unfold!

Yeah, I have to assume within the next ten, like over on Dorana, look who's talking sequel, in the next ten years, I'm taking the over. I think it's gonna happen. Or a reboot, or a whatever. Year one. DaVinci. Experience Who's Talking Now VR movie. Okay, there we go. Be Who's Talking. You can be the baby. You can talk. Yeah.

Damn. I think you're getting at something though, which is has the legacy of baby geniuses actually fucked with the legacy of look who's talking I really think we have to mention each ray, baby, too. Like that was such a big one. Yes you know just one of those things where They just completely misunderstood what people wanted Which was more of that? Right sure people saw it once and we're like, yeah, it's funny and they were like, oh you want the trade baby all the time wanted, which was more of that, right? Sure.

People saw it once and were like, yeah, it's funny. And they were like, oh, you want the E.Tray baby all the time? And they're like, I guess so. Oh, let's talk about Baby Talk briefly. Okay. Yeah. So the TV show Baby Talk. So the reason it's called Baby Talk and not Look Who's Talking is that this and the sequel were fast-tracked. And they realized that this was going to be on the air. Originally, the plan was for this to be on the air the same time the sequel was in theaters. There were some production hiccups.

Eventually, it does end up airing after March 1991. So she was like, please change the title so it doesn't take any shine off the movie. George Clooney is in season one as a regular. He is. I watched about 12 minutes. How was he? He seemed quite comfortable on screen. It felt like he might have a bright future.

Like the camera loved him is what you're saying. It's basically his last TV role before he gets ER. Does he talk about Joe Biden? A bunch. Is that true? He keeps on Joe Biden the step-in. No, but he has the hair still. Yeah, he's got the big mole.

He has the shoulder length. The power mole. Yeah, he had his big, which he has in the early seasons of ER, or the first season. It's not, no, no, no, because ER is not until 94. So after ER, he is on, I'm sorry, after Baby Talk. He's in the other ER. He was on the other ER, but that's earlier.

That's in the mid-80s. He was on a show ER, but that's earlier. That's in the mid-80s. He was on a show called Body of Evidence, starring Lee Horsley. This is not related to the Willem Dafoe movie. Not related to the amazing wax-dripping Madonna sex movie Body of Evidence. Probably one of the best candle sex movies ever made. I think so. I think so. No one has sex with Lumiere, right?

No, unfortunately. I mean, that was my notes round on the content reboot. Lumiere should fuck. Yeah, and they didn't like it. A two season police procedural that Clooney was the second lead on, and then he gets ER. He was also in a pilot called The Building,

written and starring... Great title. Bonnie Hunt, the great Bonnie Hunt. Oh, hey, yeah. And it's about a lady who's jilted by her fiance, goes to Chicago, starts a new life in an apartment building across from Wrigley Field, and it's also all about the people who live in the building, the building.

I mean, it's a good title. What if there was a building? What if there a good title. What if there was a building? What if there was a building? What if there was a building? They tried to answer. They only got five episodes, and that was that. The thing I was gonna say about Baby Talk. In Baby Talk, Baby Mikey was voiced by Tony Danza,

who makes perfect sense as... He is renamed Mickey in Baby Talk. Yes. George Clooney played the male lead in the romantic, uh, figure for the first season, but he is not the Travolta. The premise of the show is that the building is under construction and all these construction workers come and visit her a bunch and Academy Award nominee William Hickey is the foreman of the construction site. And George Clooney

is the handsome hunky construction construction site. And George Clooney is the handsome, hunky construction worker who starts visiting a bunch. What's the problem? If you look at Look Who's Talking, this is such a natural and organic way to spin off. All these horny construction workers keep coming upstairs and like interfering with her life until she falls in love with one of them. They originally cast an actress named Connie Selica.

She filmed five episodes. The show was supposed to premiere in September 90, before Look Who's Talking 2. She hated the show so much, she quit after five episodes. They restarted the season. They shot it all again with Julia Duffy. A legitimate TV star. Sure, absolutely. Right.

Famous most for Baby Talk. She does. Look, she went on to design for women after this. Yes. She, after the first season, is lambasted critically, quits the show out of shame. Sure. So then they fire Clooney, and in season two, they recast all parts, and Scott Baio is the new love interest.

Baio, I'm seeing here, described the show as a nightmare to make. So, things doing well. And the show concludes its run, and then 18 months later, Look Who's Talking Now comes out. When asked to comment on the film, Amy Herkeling recently said, Ugh, why? I can't watch it. That's all she has to say.

The thing I just want to share is that the critics hated Baby Talk so much that when the new stars were cast for season two, they were basically shamed by the press. And on Wikipedia it says, prior to the second season beginning, the new stars of Baby Talk were interviewed about their decisions to join a show that was so loathed by reviewers, Mary Paige Keller, who replaced Julia Duffy, claimed to have an indifference over the reputation of the show among critics since she had never seen the show

prior to replacing Julia Duffy. Scott Baio's defense was, quote, I did a show for 11 years, Happy Days, that never, ever got a good review. So we hope you guys will love it, but we're just going to do the best we can, and it's what the people like That's going to stay on and then the show was canceled. He said it was the worst experience of his life cool

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Even those who might seem impossible to please, Phoebe buffet who's got very specific tastes Look whether you're booking for yourself your partner your sleep light early rise mom or your high maintenance group chat I'm always booking for that group chat. Yeah, your family's a bit of a group chat true You can find exactly what you're booking for on booking comm tell me tell me about your hotel preferences David Uh, I love a sauna. Okay. Okay. Anything spa-y. I love- you know what I love? A robe. Give me a robe. Customized robe.

Give me a fluffy robe. Now, are we talking hot tub in room? Like, kind of comically shaped hot tub, a heart, a big martini glass? Is that what you want in room? Sure, some strawberries. You want strawberries? I don't know. They're always fun. You want strawberries in your stay.

Uh, David, you know what I like when I'm on vacation? Uh, what do you like? A giant bed. I like to get a comically large California king. Yeah. You know what? Yeah. I feel like a Hollywood king.

Sure. I get the kind of bed you couldn't fit into a New York City apartment and a bed that is comically Oversized for a tiny little man like me And what's great about booking.com is it gives you all of these different filters and options when you're searching for a place to stay Yes, where you can you know say I would like to have the largest bed Yeah, Possible. Possible, you might be surprised to hear, I'm pretty specific in my bathroom preferences as well.

Another thing that booking.com helps me filter out to make sure I got exactly what I need. Here's the thing. If David can find his perfect stay on booking.com, anyone can. True. Find exactly what you're booking for. Booking.com, booking.yeah. Book today on the site or in the app.

David! Yes? It's the summertime. Ah, I'm, uh, fanning myself. I've got a paper fan. I'm trying to fan off myself in my white linen suit. Listen. You know what's nice on a hot summer day?

What? A mint julep. That's true. Or a mint lemonade. Refreshing. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm trying to fan off myself in my white linen suit. Listen. You know what's nice on a hot summer day?

What? A mint julep. That's true. Or mint lemonade. Refreshing. But what about a mint Marlboro? Look. What?

Getting a summer bod out. Getting a savings bod in. Look at my lean savings bod. A skimpy wireless bill. Yeah, maybe. A fat wallet. Maybe a white linen suit with cut off sleeves. You can say buh-bye to your overpriced wireless plans,

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Upfront payment of $45 for three month, five gigabyte plan required, equivalent to $15 a month. New customer offer for the first three months only, then full price plan. Options available. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Box office game guys. This film came out December 14th, 1990. Mistake when you see what its competition was. It's opening number two at the box office. Eight million dollars. Not bad, but not great.

Number one has been in release for five weeks. It's still number one. It's the family movie of the year. It's the movie of the year. It's one of the movies of the decade. Is it the motion picture or Home Alone? Home Alone! That was pretty bad timing on their part. Yep.

You like Home Alone? Sure. Wow, not like Home Alone? Sure. Wow, not a Home Alone guy. It's not an important movie. He hits the guys in the face. The same way. I also, I mean I grew up with it, but it was not an on repeat movie for me. Sure.

Yes. Home Alone 2 I have a much softer spot for. Yeah, because we've all been lost in New York. Yeah. We all have. In a way. In a way. Max said that very ruthfully. And I've been lost in New York. Yeah. In a way. In a way.

Max said that very ruthfully. And I've been found in New York as well. That's true. Yeah, found myself. And our favorite actor's in it. Donald Trump. That's right. Home Alone, it's number one, it's a big smash hit. No, I meant Brenda Fricker, obviously.

Yeah, that actually is maybe the single worst movie this could have opened against. Yeah, exactly. Just completely... Like talk about all of their shine being taken. Yeah, it's being just melted by Home Alone. So Who Look Who's Talking To is making it to number two. Number three, it's a film we've covered on the show.

It's a great film. It's just beginning its run. It's in its second week, but I think it's just expanded wide-ish to about a thousand screens. One of your favorite directors, an oddball film. It's a main feed. Is it Edward Scissorhands? Edward Scissorhands.

Edward Scissorhands. You like that one, Max? Love that movie. It's good. Must be. Yeah. Okay, so Edward Scissorhands, number four is a film we've covered on this show.

We're really getting into almost all movies on this show at this point. We're very close to having covered all movies. This film wins Best Picture in 1990. It's been out for six weeks. Okay, well, Silence of the Lambs wins in 91. It sure does. We've covered this.

We sure have. And it's a Best Picture winner. That's right. It's not Terms of Endearment. No, no. Driving Mistakes. Not Driving Mistakes, that was in 89. That's 89.

You guys are circling this movie. I know. Rain Man? Not Rain Man, that's like 88. I haven't covered that. And Unforgiven's on, oh, it's Dances with Wolves. Dances with Wolves. There we go.

It's been out for six weeks, it's made only $38 million, so it's just beginning a long and successful box office run. Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves. Pretty good. Max, do you care about Dances with Wolves? I've only seen Dances with Wolves on a plane at the time of release. Wow. Very young.

Okay. Yeah. So I haven't, I haven't danced with the Wolves again. Yeah. Number five of the box office. Will we ever cover this? We debate this director a lot because he had a strong first half. Barry Levinson? Nope. Okay.

Weak second. Rob Reiner? Rob Reiner. It's one of his better movies. It's not Few Good Men. No, although that one is also good. But this would have been right before that. Misery.

Misery. Misery. Which rocks. Misery's great. Yeah. Oscar winner, of course. Do you like Misery? I've never seen Misery. It's really good Do you like Misery? I've never seen it.

It's really good. It's like crazy. I've never seen it. I don't think it's crazy because... The premise sounds small. Sure. And like it's kind of one of those things where you're like, well, I get it. I get what that is because the character is so ubiquitous. Right. I feel like I've seen Misery, but then when you watch Misery, you're like, this is good.

I saw Kathy Bates being interviewed yesterday while we're on the topic of misery and she looks so beautiful. She's a gorgeous woman. Yeah. She's Matlock now. And now she's Matlock. She can do anything. Yeah, she's really...

Have you ever seen taking off the Milos Forman film? I've not. This is the first time I'm hearing about it. Which I believe is her first screen credit. And I think it might be Foreman's first American film. I think that's right. It's Buck Henry and Lynn Carlin from Cassavetes Faces are the two leads and it's like two upper middle class

New York parents whose daughter goes missing. And it's basically a night of them freaking out waiting for their daughter to return home. And it turns out the daughter has run off to audition for an open cast and call for a play with a bunch of hippie musicians. Or maybe it's some, maybe it's not a play. Anyway, Kathy Bates is in it doing an unbroken musical performance. She like sings a song while playing guitar for like four minutes and is

smoking hot and she's credited under some other name. Yeah because she was barely it's her first appearance I think. Yeah. Yeah I don't know. That's cool. Yeah. Number six of the box office new this week is a bit of a 90s classic. Sorry her name is Bobo Bates. Great. Is Richard Benjamin's Mermaids. Uh-huh. With a... That's a movie I've never seen. That's a big movie for me. That's a great movie.

Because the soundtrack was ubiquitous. It stars who I consider to be the big three, Cher, Bob Hoskins, and Winona Ryder. And Christina Ricci. Ricci, very young Ricci is in there. She's really good. Make it a big four. Make it a big four. Sure.

Fair enough. I just think it's funny that it's like, who shall we pair with Cher, the statuesque pop singer? Perhaps a 5'3 British burly man? And you watch the movie and you're like, -"I love it! They work! This is great!" -"Yeah." Number seven in the box office is The Rookie, one of the more crass films in Clint Eastwood's filmography. Is that him and Sheen?

Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, there's a lot of rookies out there, of course, because there's later Dennis Quaid, the rookie, in Clint Eastwood's filmography. Is that him and Sheen? Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, there's a lot of rookies out there, of course, because there's later Dennis Quaid, the rookie, and then there was later Nathan Fillion, with the TV's the rookie. There's also a rookie of the year. There was a rookie of the year.

There was. On screen, and every year in every sport, there is also a rookie of the year. Yeah. Number eight in the box office, and this is what I wanted to get to, is a little film that's been out for a month called Three Men and a Little Lady. Wow. So both unwanted sequels were being dumped on audiences. That is really interesting. I have no idea. And the number nine at the

box office is the new this week, the Sydney Pollock film Havana. Oh, with red, red, red for I've always wanted to watch Havana, but I'm Lina Olin that wasn't really missed Yeah, it really missed. I've never seen it. It just has one of those posters that kind of like Who wants to see this movie where it's just like leather faces back. I mean look at Redford It looks like you could draw roads on his face. What is the premise of the movie? What if he went to Havana? An American professional gambler who decides to visit Havana to gamble on the eve of the Cuban Revolution So it's like Dirty Dancing Havana nights where it's a lot like a dance Competition happened on the eve of the Cuban Revolution. He does the rumbo with Ramla Gary in this movie Number 10 of the box office is Predator 2.

Okay. Great movie. These all, a lot of these movies feel like they're made in completely different time periods. Well, expand on that because I agree with you. The idea that Edward Scissorhands exists in the same universe as Look Who's Talking 2, a film that has the aesthetic quality of something like... This is a real, well that's why when you can imagine people walking into Edward Scissorhands

and being like, whoa, what the fuck is this? Compared to the drivel they're being served up. On the opposite of what we were talking about, where we're like, that's a no notes movie. That is a, this guy made Batman, we're not going to tell him shit. That is like a complete vision. And then Dances with Wolves is like this lunatic somehow got his way and convinced everyone to let him make a three and a half hour epic

about how he is the great one. Yes. Yeah. Maybe I gotta see Havana. The whole thing with Sidney Pollock is he's made movies I liked, but Sidney Pollock is guilty of making a boring movie. Like he's done it. Sidney Pollock has guilty of making a boring movie. Like, he's done it. Sydney Pollock has made like eight movies that don't exist.

Exactly. So like, I love The Firm, which is unhinged, but I have a feeling Havana might be not unhinged. But it's also, right, made like many undeniable masterpieces. Yes. He's made great movies. He was a good director. And as I've said many times before, is like maybe my favorite actor. Oh, he's just an amazing actor.

If Pollock is swinging in, it's bucks, big bucks. I'm with you, Griffin. If I could have any actor's career, it would be Sidney Pollock over the age of 15. If I could have any actor's chest hair, it would be those gray forests sprouting on Pollock's chest. Your father was producing Partners, I think. Well, because they had the interpreter. They had a company together for a long time.

Your dad is a producer on the interpreter? Do I want to? He is a producer on the interpreter movie that had a very normal production. Nothing strange happened at all during the interpreter. I wish I knew what you were talking about because the movies vanished from memory. Only someone could interpret that. Or random hearts, which also was a really smooth movie. Yeah.

And then they're both producers on Margaret and infamous me. They are both producers on Margaret. The interpreter is in and random hearts Harrison Ford is in and those guys are not grumpy at all. So I can't imagine there were any troubles there. No, neither of those guys has, that was, you know, Sydney was operating at sort of the end of an era where you would bring in those big guys to do passes on the script. And it's like, there's like the five, the big five.

You're like Robert Townes, like who you, who you thinking of? I'm thinking more Xaelian, Frank, you know, these guys that are just getting inordinate amounts of money to do a few days work. Right. And what I think that, you know, this should happen. Right. Or whatever. Like whatever it is they do. Yeah. But there was an investment in, in the screenplay that doesn't quite exist anymore. Yes. Whether that was the right way to go about it, I don't, I don't know, but there was a real

respect. There was a feeling of like, if we've hired a legitimate director and legitimate stars onto something that could be a programmer, we owe it to everyone to make it a little more literate. Well like and Random Hearts is a great example of like that's a movie that doesn't exist anymore right now. No one remembers that movie despite it having Harrison Ford being a Sidney Pollock film. It's based on a best seller, A-list talent through the, you know, like at every level of it, right?

You know, and- 90 million dollars. Right. And like 90 million dollars because Harrison Ford wanted to do it. So then it became- We gotta do it right. A big budget movie.

Right. And then you're like, what's it about? And it's like a cop thinks a congresswoman's spouse who died in a plane crash was cheating on her with his spouse who also died in a plane crash. The same premise as the film Bounce. Another film that audiences were like, no tickets please! They walked up to this ticket booth and they were like,

I want to make it clear. I won't be buying any tickets to bounce. Can I buy a ticket just to refund it? But the Pollock thing is so fascinating because I feel like his... But it's like, right, two cucks fall for each other. Sorry. Sorry to be, you know, to be crass. But the cuckold did fall for each other. Well, I wouldn't...

You don't want to be in the mood for love and go like, look at these two cucks. Fucking cucks. It's a bit of a... I wouldn't word it as a cuck thing. I just think it's more that like the... They're united by the premise, the idea that both of their partners cheated on each other. I just remember seeing the trailer at some movie my dad took me to and him going, that's going to be a big hit.

Max's face when I said two cucks. You look disgusting. I wish people could have seen it. My dad was like, that's going to be a big hit. Max's face when I said two cocks. He looked disgusting. I wish people could have seen it. Yeah. My dad was like, that's gonna be a big hit. Right. And I was like, why? And he went, because Harrison Ford's in it and people will see whatever Harrison Ford's in it. Which was largely true. But that one, bop. Well, it's in the midst of his tough late 90s. A weird run. With Sabrina and Devil Zone and Six Days, Seven Nights. But it just spoke to the premise of that movie was so unappetizing to be like, here are two sad people in mourning because their spouses died and then they realized that also their spouses were cheating on them.

So there are like kind of two stages of grief. It's 133 minutes long. There's a lot of other stuff going on though, because I did watch it recently for the first time and I was like, there's a whole procedural element. Are they trying to solve like the crash? Yeah. There's some, there's some funky stuff and Kristin's character is a politician and there's some stuff going on there. Um, yeah, it's not as straightforward as bounce, which I keep bringing up for some reason.

Now bounce is the one with African Paltrow and it's a Don Roose film. It's a Don Roose movie. And I love Don Roose's first film. Pure Miramax. That's like quintessential 90s Miramax. Miramax, right, exactly. And it's not based on anything. Roose wrote it himself, but it's also kind of downbeat. It's like a sort of a sad romance. Yeah. It's a bit melancholic. It has a fantastic on set making of documentary. On the Bounce DVD?

That's the kind of unhinged shit that people don't know about Max Minghella. Do you even realize how much I've adored Max? Who's a successful professional in this business we called show, and yet will reveal things like I watched the Bounce DVD special features and have an opinion on them. I was trying to watch, look who's talking to on iTunes and iTunes started bugging out on me and I was like is this a Wi-Fi problem and then I just like no Truly I put on other movies and everything else was working that wouldn't so I broke out my fucking look Who's talking to full-screen DVD the only way you can watch the movie on physical media?

And I was like I wonder what the special features are like on this And they had two uh-huh bonus trailers Wow baby geniuses and One other movie I'm forgetting but then the other special feature which was something we were talking about in our news and deals group Text the other day David talent files. Oh Yes, there's just like a screen slide show You can go through the key figures on the movie and it just lists fun facts and credits. It's like an Amazon X-ray. Basically. Yeah, talent files.

Just John Travolta standing like this with his arms out. And it just lists his birthday and where he was born. With his arms out like an action figure. Truly, yeah. Like show me on the John Travolta where he attacked. Did we finish the books off his guy? We did. We did all 10. I'm sorry if you want me to repeat them. It was home alone. Look who's talking to Edward Scissorhands, dances, dance with the wolves, misery mermaids, rookie, three men and a little lady, Havana and predator too. Wow. Number

11 is child's play too. If that lights your fire, the best of the child's play. Did you guys see better man? Yes, of course. I mean, it's quite something. Max, again, you and I are the same age. We are. Spent a lot of time in England. Yes, mate. Was Robbie important to you as a sort of 11 year old or were you too cool for Robbie?

I wasn't too cool for Robbie, as you know, knowing me, I'm not cool at all. No, I definitely wasn't too cool for Robbie. I would say that watching Better men, I didn't realize some of the cultural stuff that he was connected to. I completely forgotten his relationship with Nicole Appleton. I think a lot of people did. Every, no. So Nicole Appleton, Griffin, if you were a teenage boy in London. All Saints was important to you.

Oh, I went to an All Saints concert, but also the Appleton sisters. Speak in my language. Appleton sisters were definitely on the bedroom wall. Yes. Probably in lieu of Kirsty Alley's headshot. All Saints was an incredible British girl group. Familiar with All Saints. I don't understand.

They had two Appleton sisters. First hand, how culturally impactful they were. Neither Appleton sister seemed to make much artistic contribution to All Saints. Like it was almost all Shaznei Lewis, I think was the songwriting, the singing. The Appletons were just kind of there too, but boy were they babes.

They were babes. When I was trying to make the argument for why that film was great and worth seeing to American people who were just like, I've never even fucking heard of Robbie Williams. I don't give a shit. I'm like, this movie's better actually the less you know. Because shit like the fucking Gallagher twist at the, is mind boggling if it's not something

you grew up reading in the tabloids. Better Man, great. I really like that film. If you haven't seen it, check it out. It's an accomplishment. And it's so indicative, I think, of the time that we're living in, that a movie with that much work put into it, and it's that accomplished, has zero cultural impact. Right. Beyond being an instant cult hit.

Exactly. And there are other movies that are doing well at the box office right now, which will be left unnamed, which lack, I would say, some of the same artistic... Steve is here. There's Piglins. Chicken jockeys. We have chicken jockeys. I don't know what you're talking about. Or what about a king of kings? I showed you the clip of Pierce Brosnan. He's like, why not a film about Jesus? We haven't talked about Shadow League, but I 100% did not know that movie existed. Are we allowed to talk about Shadow League? I think probably the first rule of Shadow League is we don't talk about Shadow League.

But it's fun to mention it. Yeah. No, Ben, you can keep the reference in. It's just people can tear their hair out wondering what it means. To build on what you said, Max, what I found dispiriting was not just that Better Man was kind of ignored, but it was immediately turned into a headline of why would they ever make this movie? That there was this sort of celebrating

about how hard it bombed of like, this is so stupid, they spent this much money on a guy we've never heard of. And I just want to keep yelling like, guys, the movie is good. It's a crime that it exists. Yes, like even if you want to go learn about him, that's fine, just enjoy the movie. But people were treating the release of that movie

like it was the fire festival collapsing. No, I agree with you that people were so like dancing on the grave. So nightmarish to me about a lot of industry reporting now with sinners, which looks like it's going to open well, which is good news. Yes. But these pieces being written before its release where it's like, what were they thinking giving acclaimed director Ryan Coogler and like-known actor Michael B. Jordan a budget for a film. That people love. These fools.

Mike DeLuca, they're acting like he's at the casino throwing money around where I'm like, it's a fairly reasonable package. This is the same back and forth between writing constantly about how much David Zas love sucks, correct, and then being angry every time an artistically interesting film is greenlit under his watch and being like these fucking idiots. This shit's gonna buy? Ryan Coogler may be the most box office proof filmmaker. Coogler who?

Who do we have to like young Spielberg? He's like, hey, can I have $90 million to make a vampire movie? With my like closest collaborator, my established movie star. And everyone's like, wow, Warner Brothers is really writing some checks they can't cash. I'm just like, can nothing happen? Is nothing allowed? We're also like recording this. I'm sorry that I'm so mad about this when it seems like Sinners will do just fine. We're recording this the day that Sinners is coming out and Deadline's like,

Thursday previews were good, but we all know the break-even point for this movie It only got 99% on Rotten Tomatoes will that be enough what do they want? What do they want? It's now maybe over indexing to a 50 million dollar weekend But will it have lags? I don't think any middle schoolers will be arrested watching this movie, so it seems like a bomb to me Shut the fuck up! Our world is collapsing. Let good movies exist Schoolers will be arrested watching this movie. So it seems like a bomb to me Our world is collapsing let good movies exist. This is a victory if they sneak through the system Also, what was the other highest grossing original movie reasons? Nope, wasn't it? Yes Yes, they're copying it to know they're copying it to know which did great Yeah, great to like nobody draws any conclusions from any of this.

No. Right. And Nope is like, it costs the same amount of money, open to probably the same amount of money, made probably, you know what I mean? And everyone was like, yeah, that's a one-off though. That'll never fucking happen again. And I'm like, well, not if you don't let it. Every trade is like, look, we all know the one conclusive lesson from the box office

in 2025 is that any movie with Chicken Jockey will be a hit. We should all be making chicken jockeys. Mike Lee's chicken jockey is approaching. I wonder what's going on. I have been wondering about the Minecraft two negotiations. Oh yeah. They must be insane. Cause they got them over the fucking. They do. I mean that is, you could just ask for.

Like seriously Mojang... Only green M&Ms. Right, well Mojang should be like, so it's gonna be a courthouse musical, we're thinking Lady Gaga, like they should just bake Folly-a-doo again. Minecraft Folly-a-doo, yes? Here's who I would love to be right now. Jack Black. Yeah.

Sitting back going, hey Warner Brothers, I'd love to hear you argue why I'm not important to the success of the second Minecraft movie. Right. Right. Right. Which by the way, they tried to do that shit with goosebumps. They were like, we don't need to fucking pay you. We'll make goosebumps too for half as much money. They test screened it. Kids first note. Where the fuck is Jack Black? Where is president of America Jack Black? They like paid him $2 million to come in and do reshoots for two scenes. We have all been collectively naive about the prowess of this actor. I've always loved Jack Black. I will confess, I didn't really put it all together until this movie.

It was so... Oh wait, they always open. Here's what's wild. You step back and you're like, he not only has conclusively been the biggest family star, like family movie star for 25 straight years, kind of uncontested, without dips, like his bombs are not family movies. Right. His bombs are grown up. And even something like Clock in the Walls like does fine.

Does 80 million domestic or whatever. Right. Beyond that, you're like- That was a Blanchett because kids go nuts. Yes. Yeah, and that was- Kate the Great. Right. Beyond that, you're like... That was all Blanchette because kids go nuts. Yes. Yeah. Kate the Great. Right. And that was obviously Roth. The Roth fans were showing up for that. But you're like, kind of no one has had a run that big. No, he's unbeatable.

I mean, the Jumanji movies made just unspeakable. Two Jumanjis, four Kung Fu Pandas. Oh, fuck. You're right. Two Goosebumps, one house with a Clock in its Wall. Just the one so far. Shark Tale. A School of Rock. Minecraft.

School of Rock. Nacho Libre was also a hit. Nacho Libre did well considering it's Nacho Libre. His only real flop is Gulliver's Travels, which still like made money in like Moldova or whatever. So Emily Blunt had to pull out of Iron Man 2, right? That's sort of the legacy of Golden Strat. To be clear, this is what talking with Max is usually like.

He was pretty locked in for the look who's talking to discussion, but mostly it's kind of bouncing from Hollywood ephemera, you know, and box office data. I have ADHD. Could you tell? Was that obvious from doing a podcast with him? This whole podcast has ADHD. But this is how we became friends. Mine is just undiagnosed.

Is you basically reaching out to us and being like, my brain sadly works the same way. Has all of these things rattling around. Look, there is something about, as I brought this up, at the top of the podcast, I mean, David and I are basically the same age, grew up in the same school system at the same time, probably saw all of these movies in the same theaters. What was your theater? Were you... Finchley Road, 02, Muscle Hill Odeon.

I went to the Muscle Hill Odeon a lot. I was more of a Holloway Odeon boy. You lived in Muscle Hill. I also loved... No, I was a hamster boy. Hamster boy. I also loved... I love that Odeon too.

The whole... Yeah. I mean, these are... I mean, I would go to the Camden Odeon a lot. Holloway Odeon was my main. Camden Odeon was a bit grossy Odeon was my main. I would say. Camden Odeon was a bit grossy. It was very grotty.

Yes. But we have a lot of shared history. And then Griffin, I feel like we have an insane amount of shared history because your father filmmaker, mother not born here, but sort of intellectual, slightly eccentric. And I think that thing of like us independently becoming film nerds and then having a parent who could be like, if you're interested in this, I can explain the shit to you. Right, and I can kind of, I can tell you some things, right? I can kind of provide context.

Yeah. So I feel deeply connected to this podcast on a spiritual level. And as you know, very grateful for its existence. Would you go to the HMV that was in, like the top by the Hampstead station? Yeah, I would. I spent like half my life there. Just cause that would be the thing where you go in

and be like, I got 10 pounds. I'm walking out of here with one to two CDs. So I got to really think. Not to sound like John Travolta sneaking his children into Total Recall, but there was a great trick you could do at the HMV, which is if you opened your CDs from the left side and not the right side, you could keep the tags on. Go ahead.

Copy the CD, take it back, get it returned. You could burn the CD. So yeah, I went there many times and I don't think I ever spent a dollar. Wow. Or a pound. Or a pound. Yes,. Wow. Or a pound. Or a pound. Yes. Come on. Or a euro.

What else were you haunts, David, as a youngin? Well, Poundland. Did you go to Poundland? Yeah. We pounded out. No, I only went to Poundland at university when I had no money and a place like Poundland was actually kind of... Did you go to Cockbusters?

I have been to Cockbusters. Have you ever been to Cockfosters? I have been to Cockfosters. Have you ever been to Cockfosters? I've never been, but it makes me laugh every time. It's always funny. If you get out there, there's a big woods you can go into. I went there once. And the next station is Cockfosters. This is a train to Cockfosters.

They really hit it. Cockfosters. What were my haunts? Oh, you know, the Internet Cafe on Regent Street. No, I don't know. I mean, what was my life back then? I went to Rowan's. You ever go to Rowan's?

I didn't. The bowling alley in Finchley, at Finsbury Park? No, I don't think I did. I went there all the fucking time. It was a bowling alley. You could pay 50 pence to enter. You had to give them some money to get in there. It was a bowling alley. There was a big bar where you could get food and you're 13 years old.

Like it's perfect. Sure. And there was a giant arcade, like, you know, arcade cabinets. Do you ever go to the Acton Warner Brothers theater? No way. I mean, when would I have ever been in Acton? Because I would go to that also had like a bowling alley and arcade. So lots of important movies there. Daylight. Great movie. I saw it on plane, but great movie. Really good fucking movie. And the fifth element I saw twice at that theater. Sure. Sure. I do remember- Were you in Acton because like the BBC was over there? Like why were you in Acton? BBC one, BBC two. I don't know. I think I just went, cause it was a place you could

see daylight. I do. I think Griffin, you're like this as well. I don't know. I think I just went because it was a place you could see daylight. I do, I think Griffin, you're like this as well. I don't remember anything in my life. I can't remember what I did yesterday. I remember exactly where I saw every single movie. Me too. That is unfortunately a sickness of mine as well. I would go to Notting Hill and get, go to the computer exchange, which was right outside the station. It's been hours there. Like remember when before the internet, you just had to go to a store? And just like, it's like, I'm just gonna be in the fucking record store all day because I can buy one record.

I spent half of high school at the Union Square version megastore. That was my version of the HMV. Look, when I came to America, I would go to a megastore. A bunch of megastores. I just wanna, I'm not looking for a medal, Oh, a mega store. A bunch of mega stores, yeah. I just wanna, I'm not looking for a medal, but I just want to call out how I'm not even doing

the bit of being annoyed that I can't do the bit. I just let you guys- You kinda did it right now. I was pretty proud of you, Griffin. I was gonna hope that we could get through it. For eight minutes, I wasn't scratching myself. I wasn't biting my tongue. I just let you guys talk about local UK haunts.

Now you're not an Arsenal fan, right? No, I'm not. We should avoid football as a subject. I did. No, I, and I'm a diehard football fan, but if I get into explaining who I support, I know who you support now and we've gotten into it. Yeah, let's not talk about it. about it. I'm just trying to think of other things I did in England besides like go to school. Where did you go to school? CLS. Oh right. City of London. I am working with a filmmaker right now. I think went to City of London, Mickey Down. Must have been younger than me. Who's one of the creators of industry. I'm pretty sure he was a city boy as well.

Okay. Probably your age. You know, you might've been there at a similar time. It was a classic. He's a couple of years younger than me, maybe it's a classic. My parents were like, fuck you got in. Like, you know what I mean? Where it was like, and I later I asked. What do you mean? It was a test school and I got a scholarship, like I got money. And like my parents were like, basically,

they were kind of like, I mean, take the test. But they basically weren't like, oh, we'll see. They were quite surprised. And I remember later I asked my teacher, God bless him, Mr. Phillipson, I believe he's now retired. Like, because he interviewed me, he was my interview. I remember, I was like, oh, you know, do you remember your interview with me?

And he was like, yep. Your math score was right on the line. And it was one of those like, if we like him in the interview, well, you know, then we'll think about it. So he did tell me that I just, Did you have an American accent? I did. Was that tough for you? Yes.

Yeah, I can imagine that was hard. Especially if you remember in the early 2000s, America's rep in the UK was a little dodgy Did did the schoolboys do the reverse version of the bit to you? Did they do like oh really? Did you grow up in New York? No, they didn't really do that. No, I just got a lot of shit Doesn't sound like they were very funny. No, they weren't that creative I mean George W. Bush was president and then we went into Iraq and Britain had you know went into Iraq too. You know what I mean? Like America was just very unpopular.

Matthew 10. Let me check my notes here quickly. Matthew 11. A plus. I'm seeing here that George Bush is standing behind to sign the submission accomplished. So I assume it went great. Matthew 12. Close the book on that one. Matthew 13. No, I got some shit. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. It was fine. It was like my life. My life was that I was the weirdo. Matthew 14. You seem to have a positive... Matthew 15. I'm a pretty positive fella.

Yeah, memory of it, right? When you talk about... When you have to talk about your time in every episode, because it's forced upon you. Given that I went to a uniform school that was all boys that was like this kind of posh school, not as posh as some, you know, like your Westminster... He's pointing at me by the way. I don't know where you went to school. This by the way just feels like we're just having a catch up conversation. This is usually us going to like get lost.

I gotta go. Yeah. Yeah. Where did you go to school? You went to St. Anthony's. I know that. I did. And then I went to UCS. Oh, sure. Oh, that's always been cool. UCS, the school of Alex Garland. Yeah, there you go. Did they have the pinstripes? We had a horrific maroon and black stripes. It was one of those things was just like mug me.

Just this like layering. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I remember I wore black and I was kind of like, our uniform is boring. And my mom was like, no, no, no, that's good. You don't want to be like advertising. It was a hideous uniform. Yeah. CLS.

Yeah, it was a good school. I had good teachers. I have a lot of love for some of my teachers. This is really interesting, I think, to a lot of your listeners who tuned in to hear about it. I can tell, this is either gonna be people's favorite thing or this is the moment where everyone unsubscribes. And I fell in love with the movies more than anywhere else.

Hey, and we all going to the Halloween, and to the screen on the hill, and to the fucking Notting Hill Gate, and the the you know, every man and the the Phoenix and Finchley Did you ever go to the Phoenix? That's a great theater. Yeah, and I believe that's still going strong. Good. I hope so Yeah, go check it out. Max is there anything you want to plug London? Mm-hmm. Nothing. I really want to plug I'm so I want to plug this podcast. Hey, so thrilled to be on it. It's Glad we did it. podcast. I'm so thrilled to be on it. I'm glad we did it finally. I will return with Jamie Bell, my much more charismatic cohort and either we'll revise or figure out something else.

Yes, absolutely. You're in The Handmaid's Tale. That's in its final season. It's just ending. It's, I think, airing now. Yeah, it's airing now. I think think airing now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think I think this is the last season, right? Yeah. Yeah. I'll confess. I don't know what your character is up to anymore, but I assume it's all good. You and me both, my love. I couldn't tell you what he's up to, but I shot it. Um, and uh, I'm filming right now. You're in C three

of industry for four. Season four of industry. industry. Check out Shell, which will be out later this year. It will? It will be. Who's got Shell? Who picked up Shell? I don't know if I can say that. But it'll... Now, is Kit Harington still in industry? Or is he gone? He is. And yes, yes. Is he a good lad? Is he a fun-hanging kid? One of the nicest people I've ever met. He's very small. Very little. He's... Well, look, I'm not a massive leutomate.

Sure. No, it's an amazing group of people. It's been a lot of fun. I love that show. I think it's great. Ooh, Kiernan Shipka is in this season. I'm seeing here. And Cal Penn.

Wow. Claire Forlani. I have so many questions. I got to work with Claire Forlani the other day. I will just finish with this, and had no idea that she was in the show or going to be on set. And that's a big fucking deal. Yeah, Meet Joe Black.

I mean, I lost my mind and I tried to explain to her that Meet Joe Black is like a really important film, I think to basically men who were 14 at the time that Mejo Black was released. It is a movie that has an insane relevance to people who were just teenage boys when that film came out. I don't know why. What are you talking about? I thought that movie just didn't do well. Like, she's just sort of like, forget it.

I don't think she's conscious of the fact that it is so meaningful to a lot of people. It's a good movie. We were very positive about it on this show. I will, you know, cause I'm also a Die Hard succession fan. It is quite strange how much overlap there is between those two projects. Industry and succession? No, succession and Meet Joe Black. I feel like Meet Joe Black has a lot of succession.

Interesting. Like supporting, oh yes. Yeah, cause it's got, you're right. But Meet Joe Black has a lot of succession. Interesting. Like supporting... Well, oh yes. Yeah, because it's got... You're right. I mean, the sort of the guy giving away the business. Right. When I first saw Succession, the pilot, I remember being like, is this the same universe

as Meet Joe Black? How great would it be if Joe Black showed up in the final episode of Succession? Right, if Cox is like, fuck you, I'm buying another network! And then finally Brad Pitt shows up and he's like, who the fuck are you? Everything's gonna be iry. Okay, I think that's the end of the episode. Thanks, thank you for being here. Thank you all for listening. I nailed one successful callback.

Tune in next week, not for Look Who's Talking Now, that will be happening over on our Patreon. That's right. With our good friend Rebecca Alter. In fact, next week, Griffin, we shall be having a final reckoning. A final reckoning. With Mission Impossible. One assumes the final film in the franchise.

We'll find out. You never know. We wait with bated breath. You seem unconvinced. No, so this doesn't come out till late May. Correct. May. Yeah.

It's April now. It's not that crazy. Yeah. But yes, Mission Impossible, Final Reckoning Approacheth. And then we'll return. Clueless. After that, Clueless with Heidi Gardner. That's right, we can tell you that Heidi Gardner is the guest on this episode because we recorded it.

Your favorite movie. She's showing up, and it's my favorite movie. And she was such a good guest. Yes. Yeah. It'd be funny if I was like, and she stank. She shits the bed, but the movie's good. It's a great episode.

So thank you all for listening. Look forward to that. And as always, just remember that Mr. Toilet Man eats your poo poo and your pee pee. Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hossley. Our creative producer is Marie Bardy Salinas, and our associate producer is A.J. McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by A.J. McKeon and Alan Smithy.

Research by J.J. Burch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Olly Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, BlankCheck Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus

episodes. Follow us on social at BlankCheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by BlankCheck Productions.